How often do you struggle with getting your team on the same page?

Does your team know what your goals are?  Do YOU?

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Having those conversations and opening up to your team and letting them have input and getting everyone on the same page is really valuable.

Aligning Your Team

Amelia 

We talk a lot about team and the importance of team in a building business. How important do you think it is that your team is on the same page as you? 

Because a lot of people would look at you and go “wow, Duayne’s like all in. He’s very definite about what he does and doesn’t think”. It’s quite interesting, because I know you to be so open minded. And yet, I reckon there’d be people who would look in and think Duayne wants it done a certain way. He’s very fixed on his views and that kind of stuff, which I find quite fascinating. 

And at the same time, I can imagine if you’ve got a team that are just doing their thing, and not necessarily on the same page as you, does that cause issues? Do you see that causing problems for people and builders in their businesses, when they don’t have a team that’s on the same page?

Duayne  

Oh 100%. Your team has to be on the same page. And I am very open minded and encourage input all the time. Because at the end of the day, if your team’s not on the same page as you, you’re just going to continue to waste time, energy, money, and you’re just going to keep going around in circles.

What Does Your Page Look Like?

Amelia 

I think the idea of what the same page looks like, is actually really important for builders to think about. And that goes back to thinking about their values, and what’s important to them in terms of how they want to run their business. Because if you can’t actually define what your page looks like, you can’t expect your team to actually know, can you?

Duayne 

It’s very important. I think ultimately, if you get into business, you want freedom. And in reality, a building business takes a huge amount of moving parts. A lot of different teams. Your site team, your suppliers, your contractors, admin. There’s a lot of people playing a role in it. 

So ultimately, if you want the freedom that you got into business for in the first place, you need to make sure your team’s on the same path. And if you’re not spending the time with your team to let them know your goals or ambitions or the direction you want the business to go in, for example, you might not even have a mission statement. So your team may not have a clear understanding of what it actually is, the types of jobs you want to do, all those types of things, then you’re just going to keep fighting that battle. And going around in the same circles and feeling like you’re you might as well do everything yourself, pulling your hair out, wasting money, and all those types of things. 

So having those conversations and opening up to your team and letting them have input and getting everyone on the same page is really valuable.

Amelia 

I think a lot of builders can tear their hair out and think gosh, I might as well just be doing this all on my own, this is pointless, they just don’t get it. They don’t get why this is important. And then they forget that they’ve not actually done the work of defining why it’s important to them as a business owner to be doing things a certain way. 

And then being able to put that in a means by which they can communicate to their team, what that looks like. And then helping their team get on that same page or figuring out if they’re not on that same page, you know how that’s going to work.

Does Your Leadership Style Have You Paddling Like a Duck?

Duayne  

I think it’s one of those things, you need to give your team permission. I think there are so many people out there, and it’s not hard, you get so caught up in the running of the business trying to keep your head above water. And yet, it’s like a duck. You’re paddling flat out underneath, but all looks calm on the surface.

Giving your team and again, when I say ‘team’, your suppliers, contractors, admin, give them permission to get more personal. 

Find out more.

As you just said, if they’re wanting to get more involved, and you don’t clearly know yourself what your goals are, or where you want the business to go. I highly recommend taking the time, putting the effort in to do a company mission statement and those types of things. Because something as simple as two or three sentences on a piece of paper can really bring everyone together. So you really want everybody around you to understand what it is your business stands for.

Amelia 

Yeah, and I think if you’re passionate about your business, and then you can draw that passion out from your team as well, that just builds huge fuel for you to be able to achieve your goals together, and actually makes business far more fun as well.

Duayne  

Yeah, definitely. And I guess I probably, again, it could be one of those things that overwhelm people. I know for a long time, I didn’t really understand what it meant because again, you got all these people saying you need this. You need that. Find your green house. Find your blue house. But like I said before, for me:

My team knows very clearly and understands my expectations really well now. It doesn’t matter what size or value the project is. 

Our goal is to make sure that we deliver every client the best quality product we can. And that for me, that’s giving them permission to give me input. For example the contractor’s saying there’s something on drawings that aren’t quite the way we feel they should be. Bring up those conversations so we can have discussions with designers and architects and homeowners and make sure that we are delivering our clients the best possible product that we can. 

Amelia  

That’s fantastic.

If this rings a bell for you, take 5 minutes now to write out your Mission statement. You may also want to read about setting expectations with your team.