It’s not just bad people who can create problems.
Your best people can create problems for you too! How does this happen?
• They are great people.
• Totally trustworthy.
• Great character.
They wouldn’t do anything to hurt you for the world… But it happens anyway. How does this work?
Surprises pop up constantly.
If you want to save yourself from trauma, you’ll check and monitor your team—because things change in life. People have things happen to them that create distractions—not necessarily dramatic things, just the normal surprises of life.
• They have sudden health problems.
• Unexpected things happen to their family and friends.
All kinds of things pop up that can distract them and affect their performance.
The result is that you get burned.
A perfect storm occurs. A situation arises where they’ve always delivered in the crunch—yet this one time things were going on in the background of their life that just upset them enough to where they dropped the ball.
• They didn’t mean to do it.
• They had excuses.
However, they created a major disaster for you because you assumed they would do it since they always had.
And oops! It’s still your fault because you’re in charge.
You’re in charge. You should have been looking out for them. You can’t expect them to be perfect all the time because neither are you. As much as possible, set things up to work in a structure that maximizes their strengths and minimizes their weakness. That way they have the best possible chance of performing consistently on a high level.
• They’ll make a great contribution.
• They’ll feel like a valuable member of the team.
• You’ll be creating a better work environment.
• They will trust you to look out for them.
• Your team will be secure and stable, with minimum turnover.
The result of you doing a great job in leadership is that performance is great and problems, delays and accidents are minimized.
But you’ll still get burned if you don’t have backup plans.
Everything you need to get done needs a back up plan. Every key person needs a backup plan, otherwise who will do their job if an emergency occurs? The time to do this is before the problem comes, so you can transition quickly.
Many leaders stay so busy they never consider losing key people.
Those leaders are the ones most likely to get burned. Things happen, even to your best and most trusted. That makes you vulnerable. It’s a much easier problem to solve in advance than after the fact.
Get your backup plans in place now! That way you protect yourself from problems and interruptions… No matter where they come from.
This is part 3 of the HOW TO PROTECT YOUR TEAM series. Read more below.
Part 1 – Use Your Eagle Eye
Part 2 – Snakes are Sneaky
Part 4 – Talkers Shut You Down
