Building your SUPER TEAM!

It’s Super Bowl week!  Sadly my team – the Patriots will not be vying for a ring this year – but my second favorite team will be.  I’ll be waving my terrible towel and hoping that the Steelers can pull it together and take the win!

Having a great team, exceptional coaches and a little luck are part of what it takes to win the championship.   The same holds true for success in business!  No one can be successful alone.   It takes a team.  If you own a small business take a look at the team you’ve put together.   This might include your employees, family and other folks who provide your business with support including your accountant, lawyer and other support people.   Then ask yourself if you have all the right players in place to successfully achieve your goals?   If not, whom should you replace or what training and coaching do your team members need?   Think like a football coach.  Evaluate the strength and weaknesses of your team members.  Coach and train them to be even better and draft the players you still need!

Once you’ve got your team in place you need to be the leader, the coach, and motivator to make sure everyone is moving the ball down the field as efficiently as possible.  There will moments when everything clicks and you score!   There will be moments when someone fumbles or the other team outplays you or conditions are out of your control and moving the ball becomes difficult if not impossible.  These are the times that test a coach.  These are the times when it’s critical to re-group your team to devise a strategy to recover and move forward.  These are the times when it becomes absolutely critical that the coach motivates and leads and isn’t afraid to make difficult decisions and take some risks.

The best coaches are the coaches players want to play for!   You can be that coach by showing your players that you respect and appreciate them, by recognizing and rewarding their accomplishments and supporting their efforts to grow and improve.  But most important you need to have their backs when things go wrong and remind them that we are all in this together.   When you lose you lose as a team and when you win – you win as a team!