4 Tips for Building a Team that Gives You More Time and Freedom

If you’re like most business owners, you started down a path full of excitement and enthusiasm when you first launched your company. Now you’re running a team that takes almost all of your time and you have very little freedom, because as soon as you take a step back from your business or take your foot off the gas, things start falling apart or slowing to a standstill.

Many people think business owners enjoy being the “person at the top”, but most of them are just looking for their time and freedom back. Their business has become a weight on their shoulders, and they keep carrying it because they don’t want to let down their team, their clients, or their reputation. They think that if they can just grow their company to the next level, then they will be able to hand off the weight to someone else and finally catch their breath.

But the reality of it is, IF they get to the next level, they’re only trading in their current load for a heavier one. 

The reason why is because of how they built their team to begin with.

Most business owners start with a product or service they’re excited or passionate about, and figure out a way to monetize it and bring it to market. Initially, they’re wearing 18 different hats to get the business off the ground, and they have no time and no freedom because everything is invested back into the business to keep it going.

Work then becomes this endless hamster wheel of trying to grow the company enough to somehow buy back the time and freedom you were looking forward to when you first started.

You bring on team members to do the things you literally don’t have the time to do, or the things you don’t want to spend the time doing. And before you know it, you have a team of people around you that you’re now responsible for – that the business is now providing an income for.

So here you are now, running down the road, trying to make sure you don’t get lost along the way, hoping that at some point you can hand off the load of responsibility to someone else who will be happy to run with it for a while.

But here’s the hard truth: It will never happen…

Why? Because of how you built your team to begin with.

Imagine taking a step back from your team and your business for the next 90 days. What will it look like 3 months from now? Will it have grown and gotten better while you were gone, or will it be a plane on fire heading full nose-dive toward the ground?

You need the kind of team that can grow and develop the company toward the vision and mission of the business. And that kind of team never accidentally gets developed. That’s not something you can fake until you make it. You can celebrate the hustle and grind all you want, but that won’t build the high-performing team you need.

So what’s the solution, you ask?

Here are 4 Tips for Building a Team that Gives You More Time and Freedom:

TIP #1: Build a team using the “Form Follows Function” principle.

What does that mean? Define what the team needs to do before you start building and staffing a team. Ignore who is already on your team and picture things from an ideal team perspective. If you could start over and build a new team, this is how you should do it.

The team’s function is based on their mission, and the mission should always work toward the vision of the company. If you’re not super clear on either the vision or mission, then start there and work backwards so you can figure out who you actually need on the team to accomplish the mission. What are minimum number of top talent roles needed to complete the team’s mission that get’s you one step closer to the company’s vision?

TIP #2: Don’t get stuck in Phase 2 of the Team Development process by delegating too early.

All team development goes through 5 phases: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Most companies get stuck in phase 2 (storming) because the leader misreads ambition and survival instincts for leadership. Phase 2 is not only the least productive of all the phases, but it is the most volatile.

People are trying to figure out where they fit on the team, how they can make themselves stand out better than their peers, and are constantly jockeying for position. So what looks like people trying to take leadership initiative is actually people trying to get one step ahead of their peers in front of the boss. All too often, leaders will hand off responsibility and tasks to these people and take a step back, excited at their newfound time and freedom to focus on other things.

What happens shortly after this? Everything starts catching on fire, production nosedives, and the leader has to jump back in and try to fix everything. They are frustrated and stressed and don’t understand why this keeps happening.

Here’s the fix: overcommunicate the vision, the mission, and the values the team is based on. Have a written team blueprint that clearly articulates roles and responsibilities. And manage expectations by having predefined KPIs and metrics that each role is responsible for. Incentivize collaboration and look for opportunities to reward team members’ behavior that benefits the team and the company instead of just being self-serving or an effort to promote their own career.

TIP #3: Get your team in the habit of proactively assessing the market and evolving customer needs.

What got the company to where it is won’t take it into the future. The market is always changing and growing and evolving, so if you want a High-Performing Team that can anticipate it and grow with it, they have to be trained to develop that skill. Invest into a performance training program that up-levels the skills sets and expertise of the people on your team. This will elevate the way they view the market and their customers, and allow them to assess things from a higher point of view.

Schedule regular brainstorming sessions where the goal is to think outside the box. During these sessions, there are no bad ideas – only effective and ineffective ones. Remember, even ineffective ideas can be tweaked through collaboration and become effective ideas, so encourage everyone to participate. Record the notes from your brainstorming sessions in a centrally accessible place so your team can refer back to them whenever they need to.

TIP #4: Empower team members with decision-making authority, not just the responsibility for tasks.

Clearly communicate the desired intent and end state for the team’s current mission. Provide additional clarification for their specific role on the team if they need it – which they will, initially, until they get into the flow of taking ownership of their role.

If you have the right people on your team, they will take extra measures to ensure their success, which in turn leads to the greater success of the team as a whole without you having to stay heavily involved in the process. Resource your team members appropriately and create an environment that encourages collaboration.

Realistically, only about 10-20% of the decisions and responsibilities in a company actually need to be done by the leader at the top. Give your team members the room and freedom to grow and develop as leaders themselves, and be ready to underwrite honest mistakes made in the pursuit of mission completion.

Benjamin R. Lueck
Nashville, Tennessee, USA