Whether it’s a sports team or a business team; certain groups of people can be more productive than others based on leadership. Why would that be? Let’s explore…
My last blog post for PromoCorner was all about working with virtual assistants (click here for a quick refresher). Working with virtual assistants can be tough, but if you clearly identify your strengths and weaknesses, you will have a head start on being successful as it relates to building out a virtual team. So, as we finalize our goals for 2018, this blog post (and the previous one) should serve as a resource if you are interested in scaling with a virtual team.
Okay… so why can some groups of people be more (or less) productive based on leadership? Sure, leaders inspire, they listen, and they are strategic. But, what does that actually mean? All I hear is a bunch of fluff.
- What does it mean to inspire?
- How can you truly be listening to what your employees are saying when they aren’t speaking up?
- How can you take this information and strategize a winning game plan?
I believe that all successful leaders know their individual team members’ strengths and weaknesses and put their people in a position to succeed based on strengths.
At the bottom of this post is a small image of a Skill / Fun Matrix. For a PDF copy that you can print out and use, just click here. I first started using a Skills / Fun Matrix when I was experiencing burn out. Running a small SWAG distributorship while building your personal brand through weekly podcasts and blogs can be very challenging. I realized that I needed to be more strategic with where I spent my time.
On the bottom left of the worksheet you’ll notice that is where you enter in all the LOW SKILLS / LOW FUN type tasks. This is the main area you can start with to identify what tasks you may want to begin to outsource. For me this is supplier billing, invoicing clients, and other accounting type tasks like that. Numbers are my weakness, this I know. Creating content, such as this blog post involves creativity and only thoughts in my head that aren’t quite developed until I take pen to paper (or keystroke to google doc in my case). There is absolutely no way I could outsource writing a blog post. That’s obvious.
Taking this a step further, let’s think about what happens after I write a blog post. Well, this content in a “G Doc” only lives here until someone posts it on my website. That’s great it’s on my website, but how will anyone ever find it? Posting on my social media channels has been a good way for me to drive traffic to personal blog posts. So, for my personal blogs on WhatUp Silicon Valley, I’ll send my virtual assistant the g doc, blog image, and copy for the social media posts. All of this goes in the bottom left of the Skills / Fun Matrix worksheet. Are you starting to see how you can build out a job description using a simple worksheet like this?
The Skills / Fun Matrix is something I used first, but once I realized how powerful it was I started using it with our employees as well. At some point, I thought that one of our employees had a strength but after reviewing their worksheet with them I realized that I wasn’t listening to the unspoken words. If you’re not trying to build out a virtual team, this simple worksheet coupled with individual meetings with your staff can increase productivity (and morale).
Try it and if it doesn’t work for you - I want to know! Email me and let’s find out why not.
Click here to download your Skills / Fun Matrix.
Swag On,
-SwagSam
Sam Kabert is the creative director of ValueBP Marketing Group and the creator and co-host of the podcast “WhatUp Silicon Valley!” A risk taker who embraces permanent beta, Sam is leading the transformation of his family-run office supplies business into a promotional products powerhouse. Sam can be reached at Sam@ValueBP.com.