How Well Do You Manage Your Team?

In most cases, an entrepreneur will have an idea for creating a successful venture. That initial idea is usually built around bringing a particular product or service to market. There may be a view that there is a niche that can be exploited and that there's an opportunity to improve on what others are doing.

There is usually a hope that acting in such a way will boost income levels and that it will clearly be possible to create a successful and sustainable business. There may also be an idea about escaping from a situation where an individual is forced to work for others. But is there a definite aim to actually manage other people?

You rarely hear business owners discussing a desire to direct others, or to manage a team. This helps to explain the problems that may be faced as an enterprise increases in size. As the focus of the business changes, the role of the owner may also alter. From being in a situation of having created the original idea, the owner is suddenly left in a position of managing others.

In this situation, it should come as no surprise to find that some encounter difficulties. Indeed, this may offer a reflection of your own experiences here. So what can you do, if you are faced with such a problem? My own view is that it makes a lot of sense to accept that there may be some sort of weakness and to attempt to deal with it.

That's something that may not seem easy to do, but it's very clearly a necessary part of the process. It's only by accepting that there is an issue that you can seek to make the necessary changes. So how do you know whether there is a problem in the first place? You may well have an awareness that things could be better, although you can't expect team members to directly mention anything to you.

Although you may be fortunate enough to receive feedback in such a manner, most employees will understandably be less keen to make an outward show of demonstrating that problems exist. One way around this situation is to concentrate on attempting to collect anonymous, confidential feedback. This can work well, although it's harder to achieve within a small business environment.

You can certainly take direct action and you may feel that attending a course would be a good approach for you. That's something that can work well and will enable you to produce better results. Think about your requirements and whether this might be time that is well spent. There is clearly scope to improve your approach and to derive business benefits as a result.