Episode 259 transcript
You are not the only person in your business that can get things done. And imagine what it would be like if you can change that in your mind, because unlocking your team’s potential is, for sure, one of the biggest liberators of your own energy, but also, like, the force pushing your business forwards. And this episode is going to teach you my five-step framework, my flows framework, on how to get your team to do more so you don’t have to feel like you’re doing it all yourself.
Welcome to this week’s episode. Hi, my name is Emma. Mills. And I help business owners just get out of their own way and leverage their time, leverage themselves out of the business, and get the right team around them. Because when you do that, that is the journey to enjoying your business and not feeling like it’s just you, feeling like it’s a lonely path. And as Jim Rohn says, if you feel lonely at the top, then you are doing something very wrong. And I have been in this mindset, and I just want to validate that it is common.
I haven’t done a survey, but if I did, I’m pretty sure the results would be that 99% of business owners feel like they have to do everything themselves, only they can do it in the best way. There comes a point in your business where having this kind of chip on your shoulder that I have, had, I did have for a long time where I thought, it’s just me. If anything decent is going to get done, it’s just me. Like, alleviating and solving this chip on your shoulder is, one, like, nobody’s going to give you any medals for doing everything.
Two, if you try and do everything, you’re only ever going to go at the pace that you can knock these things out. And, there are only so many hours in the day. Like they say, if you want to go fast, go low, and if you want to go far, go together, but even going fast, you can still only do so much yourself. But if you multiply all the hours of your team actually doing really good stuff and letting them in on what needs to happen and letting them in on where you need to go, then that is when the good stuff happens. And my flows framework is basically created from my journey over the past 18 months. Because about literally 18 months ago, my business coach, Martin, said to me in January, beginning January 2023 here we’d made some very specific plans and projects of things we wanted to change about three months earlier. And he said to me, how you get on with this? And I was like, actually not very well.
I haven’t really made much progress. And he said, can’t you get other people involved in that? And I said I don’t think they’re able to do it, quite frankly. And I had this chip on my shoulder and I realized it’s something I had to break down. And three months later I still hadn’t made any progress. And he said to me, Emma, don’t you think it’s about time that the people around you that are very capable, important people in the business, are properly let in to what you need to get done? And so I did. And in the last twelve months we have made more progress as a business than in the past 15 years. And I want today to help you open your mindset and have a bit of a framework around how you can get your team to help you. And here is my five steps. So my flows framework flow, ah, not froze, flows framework is what I have created over the past twelve months that has gotten us into the best position I can quite frankly say we have ever been in. And so this is for you.
If you have a team around you of any size, if there’s one or two people, you still need them to help you. And at the very kind of like starter level, this is very new to you. Just the rhythm of delegating tasks is the very first point to getting people to help you and getting that confidence and trust. But we’re going to go a bit deeper here, that you’ve got a team m around you who are doing stuff, but you just know that you just don’t let them in on everything because you think, well, they’re just not going to be able to complete this project or create this new process we need or improve this onboarding that we do.
Well, I am pretty sure that if you are keeping them employed because they do a good job doing what they’re doing, you’re wrong. And that they’ll be able to add value, ideas and new perspective. So my framework flows f is, to be frank, to be frank with them and build trust and let them know where you’re at. And I have many times over the past twelve months been really frank with my team and said, guys, we have got to, as far as we can in terms of revenue and size and profitability and efficiency, with me being in every part of the business. Like if we’re going to go further and ah, you guys all want that, we’ve gone as far as we can.
Now if I don’t get out of the day to day. And if you guys don’t start to push the departments forward without me in it, and I have repeated this probably like pretty much every month we’ve had a conversation around it. But I think if you walked into my office and asked any of the leadership team, am, I very frank, vulnerable, transparent, honest, they would like to say yes. I’ll know this for a fact, because I am really, really honest. To go, guys, this is the time now. you guys need to step up. You are the business to push it forward. And so being frank with them and about twelve months ago, what I also was, was very honest in that, I feel overwhelmed. I need you guys now to step up and start to pick up more projects.
Like, I want you to do that because I feel x and having that level of trust and relationship with them has only ever been a positive in my life. So the first step of it is to be really frank with them about how you feel, where you’re at. I’ve definitely had days where it’s been more of a rant and it’s like, okay, I’m doing all of this. Can you see how if it’s only me doing this, we’re not going to get forward? It may well be. I’m sorry if I haven’t let you in on any of this before, because sometimes we just don’t give them the opportunity. But you have to be frank with your team, with guys, there’s lots to do, there’s projects, there’s ideas, these initiatives here, but you guys have to be the one to drive them forward. And making that really clear is definitely step one. So my second step, my l in my flows framework is let them know the projects that are on the radar, the things you want to do, the things you want. They have to know what is on the list because to be fair, looking back, a lot of my team haven’t always known that, and so I get annoyed about stuff not being done when actually they just don’t know it’s a priority.
So you need to let them know the key projects and also give them that opportunity to volunteer, to explain, this is what’s happening. I need someone else to start to drive this forward and let them volunteer first. It may well be that, and I’ve had this as well, where I’ve let them volunteer, but then I’ve coerced, like encouraged it down, maybe a slightly different route with someone’s skill sets that I know might be a better fit, but just letting them know, what is on the table, what needs to go forward, like cards on the table. And letting them then start to work that through for themselves, who can do it, who should volunteer is my second step. Like, letting them have the responsibility of who’s going to do it is a really important part of it. And my o in flows is to have one central project where the things that we’re talking about here that need to get done, they are tasked in that project, and it’s where everybody collaborates and updates and moves forward. And while this might sound really simple, ours is called the planes to Land project, because you only land a plane at once. The team who are involved in it, we put all of our updates in that. And if at any point I want to understand, oh, I wonder where that’s up to. That is where I look at, I don’t go and interrupt the team member.
Everything is inside that project. So, for example, at the moment we’re working on improving and amending and upgrading our onboarding process for our PA clients so we can get more information out of them quicker, impact them better, and also understand what their goals are. And so that the PA onboarding process is a task inside our planes to land project. And Abby, who manages our PA team, she updates on this task, the updates of what she’s working on and how she’s improving it and the things she’s testing and what’s holding her up or what’s holding her back, that is the place. And so everybody who’s got ownership of one of these tasks, that is where everything’s updated. So having one central project, not like stuff all over the place, these are like the big things to move forward that you felt like you could only do on your own before, is the place to collaborate. My w in flows is weekly updates. And, this is really key because I used to be really bad for kind of sporadically throughout the week. Like, what’s happening with this, what’s happening with that have, huh. We now on a Monday, that is where we discuss our planes to land. Ah. Like, I’m not prepping them throughout the week. If they need help or they need advice or questions, then that’s fine. But we have this kind of one central place every week to go. Right. so this is what’s happened in the past week.
This is where I’m up to, and everybody knows the progress of things. So having that rhythm of once a week update on the big projects, that really moves it forward. And my s in flows is to set clear accountability for your expectations. And in this, I mean that when we, we put deadlines on when we want to get things done. So like whether we’re starting something in January, we want it done by March, whether it’s a quarterly goal or a monthly goal. But we set clear accountability and we have one rule in our office and our management team that I think will set you in really good stead. And it’s that it’s okay to ask for help. Like please ask for help all day long, but it’s not okay to not do anything about something and not ask for help. We’re at a dead end with that because it’s not moving forwards.
We don’t know why it’s not moving forwards. So you can ask for help all day long but if you don’t and it’s not moved forward then we don’t accept that. So setting that clear accountability on I’m here to help you. And I know that sometimes you’re going to get asked questions that might be frustrating or you’re going to think it’s just quicker to do it myself, but this is the part of the process in upskilling and ah, enabling the people around you. But honestly that piece of advice has been absolutely golden for me and my team. So it’s all good, ask questions. But if you don’t and it doesn’t move forward then we have a problem. Because in asking the questions and it doesn’t have to be to you, it might be to other people in the team, then things will move forward. And with this framework this has changed everything. Also for the confidence of my team because ultimately now they are running projects and departments that before they were kind of like 1ft in and I was babysitting the rest of it. But now it helps them and it makes a more enjoyable role and experience for them. And if you still think that it’s only me that can do everything around here and you don’t try this framework, then that is on you. And it’s not your team that is on you and your perceptions and your mindset and your inability to have the patience to coach them and work them through it. So I hope today’s flows framework helps you to realise that there is gold most probably sat in the people around you. And if you try this and it’s like the ultimate failure then good, because we at least then know that maybe you don’t have the right people around you. But please try it because it’s not meant to be a lonely place, it’s not meant to be frustrating all the time. And you’re meant to be able to go on holiday and things still happen.
So I hope this helps you to get your head out of the dirt and, into the clouds where you’re running your business and pushing it forward. And I will see you next week. Bye.
