I’d like to leave you with one last case-in-point: One of the gentlemen we coach has an out-of-home advertising company. One of the things they do is they’ll have one or two or three crews at a time getting leased land space to put up outdoor ads.
When he was first starting out, this client was getting up at four o’clock every morning to do phone check-ins and troubleshoots with his field teams. After all, these teams were working with thousands of dollars-worth of materials. He wanted to make sure that they had clear marching orders.
But I challenged him. I said, “Why are you getting up at four in the morning to do this? Isn’t there someone else who could handle it?”
Over the course of about six weeks, he was able to let go of that job function. He handed it off to one of his key managers and established a new process whereby they could do those check-ins the afternoon before the next day’s work. Today, his company has completely eliminated those 4 a.m. phone calls. (Here’s how you can eliminate late-night communications too.)
This change worked wonders for his company and his life. His manager felt empowered by the new responsibilities. His field teams also felt empowered by their new responsibilities. My client got to stop doing those crack-of-dawn phone calls and his wife was finally able to sleep through the night without being woken up.
When my client told me how great everyone was feeling, I asked him, “Well, have you celebrated that with your team?”
He said not yet.
I said, “Well, what are you waiting for?”
So many of us are afraid of celebrating victories. We worry that our teams will become complacent or ask for raises.
But the reality is that people want to feel like they’re playing for the winning team. They want to feel like they’re making progress.
Every time you celebrate their victories, they’ll fall a little bit more in love with the work that they do.