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Getting the best performance from your staff

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Agreed, but you need to understand each component part and how they fit together to create the overall picture.

Understanding how the pieces of a jigsaw fit together is part and parcel of the challenge, but, think about it, at least when you buy a jigsaw you get to see what the final picture looks like on the front of the box, that’s the thing that draws you into the contest of completing it.

Business is very much the same, you should have a clear picture or, vision, mission, goal, objective outcome, or whatever else you might want to call it, before you embark on the journey.

When I first started out in business, I had a very hazy, grandioso vision of what I wanted because I was more drawn in by the glamour of saying I was a managing director or in my case, I chose the more exotic title of Chief Executive Officer (ah, the trappings of self-importance and wanting others to see you in a certain light), without actually knowing what it fully meant.

Looking back at the beginning of my journey, although I was never involved in the technical delivery of work, because it was never my core competency, I was always, what I thought working ‘on’ the business rather than ‘in’ the business.

I was forced do to this, because I was never au fait, with the technical elements of my chosen field of business. From the very beginning I had to employ people and surround myself with subject matter experts.

Without me knowing it, what this has taught me and honed skills in, is understanding how to build successful teams on a shoe string budget, more importantly, what individual skills people possess and how they fit into delivering the overall vision of the business.

So, you may ask yourself, what’s the one piece of advice you can take away from the mistakes I’ve made, on this particular subject; Wait for it, drum roll…

Square pegs in round holes – Understand your staff and what they love doing in the business, and get them doing that ! Its not rocket science.

Now my vision for the business is crystal, and I know exactly how its going to happen. The ‘when’ I’m not too bothered about because I know when the conditions are right the component parts will come together to create the whole.

Qasim Majid About the author
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