Growing Your Business from Within: How to Bring Out the Best in Your Team

You have heard it said that small businesses are the backbone of a nation’s economy and so it is with the UK. Small businesses like those in Manchester are a huge part of what it takes to stabilise an economy, especially after a downturn as that brought about by a global pandemic. If your SME needs a boost, perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate your team to see what you can do to bring out the best in them.

Do you have people you know can do and be so much more but seem to be stuck in a plateau, never seeming to climb the hill before them? Maybe it’s time to begin working with them, one-on-one, to see what is holding them back. You just might find that it’s an issue with the entire team or maybe there is something in that individual that needs tweaking. Here are some ways you can bring out the best in your people. You just might discover that this is what has been lacking in that business growth you’ve been striving for.

Begin with Communication

One of the things you may discover is that you haven’t established a method of safe communications with your staff. There may be employees ready and willing to share ideas they have that will promote growth in their team or perhaps on a company-wide level. Perhaps it’s time to set up an email communications link with your employees. Maybe a chat feature or some other open-door policy that encourages your employees to communicate with you, with their team leaders and even with each other. Communication is a vital element of success.

Find Value That Isn’t Being Fostered

As you begin talking first with team leaders and then with individual team members, you might discover that there are employees who just need to be encouraged to grow. Some may be labouring under antiquated business principles in which they are afraid to ‘shine.’ Perhaps they see competition as something to be feared and so it is important to help them understand that they are not competing. Their team grows in relationship to their personal progress.

Start an Internal Mentoring Team

Some team members may be hard to reach. There may be something in them that is preventing them from communicating or reaching out when they need advice or direction. There is an innovative software you could try called PushFar that helps you establish a mentoring system within your business. It’s an easy, non-intrusive way of matching mentors with mentees in need of a bit of encouragement. It’s amazing to begin seeing just how both the mentor and mentee begin blossoming over the course of their relationship. You will find it’s perhaps just what you needed to foster team growth as well.

Work on Conflict Resolution

Sometimes there is conflict within a team or between two or more teams working on the same project. Each may have different ways of going about their daily tasks and conflict can literally stall an ongoing project. It may take bringing in a mediator. If you can’t resolve the source of the conflict from within it may take outsourcing the service. Sometimes it’s just a matter of being heard. If you can work on communication as mentioned above, conflict may begin to resolve itself as individuals learn better communication skills. In other words, there is no way to resolve conflict if the warring factions aren’t willing to hear what the other has to say.

Have a Bit of Fun with Team Building Activities

Sometimes all it takes to spur growth from within is to promote a team spirit. That is something that has traditionally been missing in many business models. Why not set aside a couple days each year to have an off-site team building activity? Some businesses find that bringing employees together at escape rooms has kindled a team spirit in those who were reluctant to break the ice. These are rooms in which a mystery is laid out and the purpose is to solve a murder or grand theft in some cases. It’s fun to see how they work together to solve the mystery, and this is exactly what you need on the floor at your place of business. So much more is accomplished when there is valuable input from each and every member of the team.

So then, your business has hit a plateau and it doesn’t seem like there is anything you can do to break the funk your teams seem to be mired in. Each of the above solutions should help you begin seeing progress. Whether you are working on bringing out latent value in one individual or an entire team, it begins with communication to establish the root cause. From there, try one or more of the suggestions here and watch as you begin seeing a spurt of growth. It can be done, but it takes effort, so start today!