Team building and development is one of my favorite parts of running a company. I always say: you can’t do it alone, and having a dream team behind you that you can collaborate with and work hand in hand toward a united vision and common goal is absolutely essential to your growth AND sanity.
It’s no easy feat: building a high performing team will come with lots of high highs and low lows, and over the last few years ,we’ve learned a ton as a company going through the hiring and firing process. It’s taken time, energy and investments to get the right people on board, but now that we have them: the next most important step in the process is employee retention.
As a leadership team, we have been studying “The Culture Code,” and focused on creating emotional safety within our organization. We want to encourage our team to feel comfortable playing full out, to fail in the learning process, and to bring their big ideas to work each day.
My intention is to build a self-led company, in which everyone is able to lead and own their division, desk and department like their own. I’m proud of where we’ve arrived as an organization, with the right executive leadership in place, middle management, and all-star players at the field level. It has been a multi-year process and my #1 focus as a CEO to help them achieve their highest potential and financial goals, while working as intrapreneurs for the company.
If you want to build an organization that doesn’t rely on you as the CEO, it’s just as important to have big goals and dreams for your employees, as it is to have those goals for yourself, your business, and your family.
Ask yourself: what are the goals that you’re setting for your team as far as evolution within your company? What is the environment that you’re creating for them?
If you are a CEO who is looking not only to achieve your own business and personal goals, but want to help your team do the same, this post is going to give you some ideas and inspiration for things to work toward with your own team to not only increase productivity, but help retain your top performing individuals.
Today, I want to share with you three fun and exciting goals we are working toward as an organization at Kelly Roach International, and my goal is to be able to model the way for other CEOs and leaders to do the same.
#1: Sabbaticals.
A sabbatical is one of the oldest strategies in the world, commonly seen in the secular and religious world, for rest and recovery. It’s a time for individuals to take necessary time away to come back ready to elevate their impact and operate as a better and higher version of themselves.
This has been a long-time dream in my business and something I want to create as an opportunity for my employees, starting at the executive leadership level. Finally, after a year of planning and preparation, I’m taking my first mini-sabbatical this month – and our leadership team will run and manage the company in my absence.
A huge contributing factor in making this possible has been our focus on operational excellence. We know that the more we can focus on standardizing procedures, making sure our internal systems are running like a well-oiled machine, and that we have well-documented redundancy in our work, we can create freedom and flexibility for everyone in the company.
During this off time, I plan to take much needed family time with my husband and my daughter, recover from a fast and furious last three years, and come back as a better CEO for my team and my clients.
One of my first big goals was to figure out how to effectively do this for myself, come back and train my own 6 and 7+ figure clients to take their own sabbaticals to rest and recover, and then roll this out as an opportunity for my team as well.
We want to become an organization that allows for financial and lifestyle freedom – not just for the CEO, but for my employees. This is a multi-year process but something we feel is important to invest the time and energy in creating.
#2: The 4-day workweek.
The design of our work week no longer matches the lifestyle we desire. It also does not allow for enough time and space for hobbies, families, and our mental and physical wellbeing. Our organization is charging hard and fast toward the 4-day workweek, with a goal of implementing by January 1st, 2023 (of course, with safeguards around maintaining our performance to budget, hitting our profitability goals, and making sure everything gets done from Monday to Thursday).
This has been a goal and a dream of mine, and of our team members, so we have our eyes on the prize and are unified and focused on our path toward making it happen so that again, we can model the way for our clients.
#3: Creating Millionaire Employees.
We want our team members to be able to earn at the highest level and achieve their biggest financial goals and dreams working for our company, so that they want to stick around for life. So, our third big focus is on creating internal millionaires. Vision boards have been a part of our culture for years now, but with the launch of my new Inevitable Millionaires program (which is designed to support ANYONE at any level looking to build a 1% life), we’ve invited our team to participate and are helping them put plans in place to create generational wealth for themselves and their families.
We know that if we can create unlimited earning potential, great career progression, and an environment that yields high performance – coupled with a plan to back it up and a clear vision and roadmap, we can make it happen.
For more ideas and inspiration on achieving higher performance and bigger results from your team, consider goal setting around any of those three things.
Know that it will take time, patience, and the right people in order to make it happen (it’s no overnight process) – but it is possible.
Remember that when you set goals that raise the quality of your employees’ lives, elevate the environment your team operates in, and impact the results they achieve (personally, professionally and financially) it’ll only increase your ability to make a difference in the world and experience these things for yourself. The key to a productive, high performance team is helping your employees accomplish their biggest dreams in the process.
For more tips and insights, tune into The Kelly Roach Show here.
