John’s life is hectic. He’s running all day—appointments, phone calls, emails, people problems, customer issues, salesmen. His last quarter was the best yet since the company started up in 2015. Sales have skyrocketed, and output is tremendous. John pushes himself to the limit and falls into bed at night exhausted only to get up the next morning to do it all over again.
He had planned to attend his son’s field trip but that must be put off. There is simply too little of John to go around. He rushes to work again; go, go, go. All is well until one day the shop foreman walks up and says, “I’m putting in my two-week notice. The stress and pressure are too much!” Soon after, the only secretary who really understands his systems, puts in her two-week notice.
“I can’t believe this is happening! Lord, why me?” John cries out. “How will I survive these changes? Why are my people burning out? Something must change.”
Have you ever been in a similar situation, or felt like you were at the edge of burnout? Webster’s dictionary describes burnout as “exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation.” How do you avoid burnout? It all starts with your key people.
When Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt, he experienced burnout. In Exodus 18, we get a glimpse into the load he was carrying: “Moses sat to judge the people: and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening.” When Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law, saw the load that he was carrying, he said to Moses, “Thou wilt surely wear away . . . for this thing is too heavy for thee . . . thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.” Jethro went on to tell Moses that he needs to have “key employees” in position to help lead the people. Moses “chose able men . . . and made them heads over the people.”
If you try to be everything to everyone, you will burn out. You must build a team of key employees who can help lead. As you lead and inspire your key people, you will also be leading all those who follow those key people.
Building A Team with Key Employees
In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins says it’s important to have the right people in the right seat before you decide where your bus is going. In our plain circles, we seem to have a strong emphasis on deciding “where the bus is going” and less on making sure the right people are in the right seat. Like Moses, we have a clear vision, direction, and plan but burn ourselves out trying to get there. While vision is needed, our focus in this article will be on right people in the right seats and less on direction.
Building a team is something that happens somewhat organically. As the business grows, so does your workforce. You hang a shingle out at the end of your driveway and place a “Help Wanted” ad in the local newspaper. A few questions to ask yourself as you bring people aboard your team are:
Is this person a naturally happy person?
Is my gut feeling telling me yes or no?
Does this person value relationships?
If I hire this person, will he attract good people?
Personality tests can be helpful in finding the right person. Lots of different personality tests are available. I have found the DISC format to be the easiest to use and understand. You obviously don’t want to put a talented person in the wrong seat. When talented people are in the right seat, it creates a beautiful picture. Jesus also built a team of twelve disciples. They all had vastly different personalities. Thomas, for example, was fact-oriented and calculated. Peter was outgoing and ambitious and loved to take charge. John was very caring and put others first.
Identifying Key Employees
As your company grows, so does the need to have team members step up and lead. How do you identify the correct team member to lead? Let’s spend some time sorting out the traits of a key employee.
Trustworthy. This is the most important trait. You should be able to share sensitive information such as financials, employee problems, and new ideas and trust that others at the neighborhood hot dog roast will not find out. Trust is vital in all aspects of life—church, home, marriage, school, and work. Once trust is lost, it can take a long time to regain.
Cultural fit. Is this employee a cultural fit? Do they share the same core values that you as the owner does? As messy situations come along, will this employee handle the situation in a way that you could support 100 percent?
Competent. Are they competent with the skills required to succeed? This can sometimes be challenging to analyze. Let’s say an elder in the church is working for you, and they want more responsibility. Are they competent to perform the task at hand? I trust my wife completely and know she wants the best for me, yet I would never let her do open heart surgery on me. The same applies to employees. If you give them a task they are not skilled in, not only do you set them up for failure, but also yourself, the business, and all other parties involved.
Heart kinship. Are they a person of your heart? Do you enjoy working side by side chatting as you work? There will be times when you and your key people will work through hard situations together. Would you look forward to having them a part of this?
Adaptable. Something else to ask yourself is whether this person easily adapts to change. A quote we use in our company is, “The only thing constant around here is change.” If the bus changes direction, key employees will become essential in helping navigate it in the new direction.
Industry knowledge. Do they understand the industry? Statistics show that it works a lot better to grow your key people from within your organization than hire key people who have only a vague knowledge of your company or industry.
Communicator. Is this employee a good communicator? What can be more frustrating to an entire workforce than a leader who won’t communicate! Communication is essential and must be clear and concise. Where communication is clear, accountability is fair. How are you to hold people accountable if they are unsure what is asked of them?
Analytical. Do they enjoy problem solving? Where there are people, there will be problems. Key employees must be able to maintain a neutral perspective. They must be in tune with what the needs are of the employee and/or customers. Good problem solvers are good listeners. They consider, what is the quickest and best way we can solve this problem? Who on the team can help us get there? Recently one of our key employees told me that they vividly remember, after joining our leadership team, I told him, “You will now be solving problems and taking care of people as a key employee.”
Balance. Do they have a balance between head and heart? In other words, will they get things done efficiently (head) while taking care of their people (heart)? If they are all head, they will run over people to get the job done. If they’re all heart, nothing will ever get done.
Authentic. Do they worry more about what others say and think about them than doing what is right? A key employee is one who will make decisions based on what best aligns with the company’s core values, and not be easily swayed by fellow employees. At the same time, they do need to be able to have a listening posture towards the employees and take their suggestions when it is appropriate.
These are some traits to start with. Make your own list of traits that you would like your key people to have.
Identifying Who Should Not Be a Key Employee
The easiest way for someone to see if they are leading effectively is to look behind them. Is anyone following? It’s a lot easier spending the time to find the right key person than to demote and replace a person you had put into a key position only to discover he does not fit into that seat. A key person must not be any of the following:
A traitor. Splitting the workforce behind your back: If this employee talks badly about others in the company, including you as an owner, he simply cannot be a key employee even if he is a hard worker.
Drama oriented. Key people should not want to be the hero in every situation. If every conversation is full of drama and self-centeredness, this person is not a good fit to be a leader. The more visible the effects of someone’s leadership, the less visible they will become as a person.
Prideful. If this person does not want to be surpassed, watch out. This can sometimes be very hard to detect but watch for employees who get disgruntled when a fellow employee gets a promotion, or someone who cannot rejoice when another employee does a better job than them.
Wrong priorities. Someone who puts schedules ahead of people will not lead well. Key people must be trained to schedule their priorities and not prioritize their schedule.
Inability to accept failure. Often a major difference between key people and the rest of your team is how they perceive and respond to failure. We live in a fallen world; therefore, we will make mistakes and bad decisions. That can be okay. Someone who cannot learn from past failures they or others make will not make good leaders.
Developing Your Key People
Your employees are your greatest asset. Now that you have formed your team of key people, focus on developing them. In turn, they will develop their direct reports. This is a Biblical process: Jesus spent a lot of time developing His disciples who, in turn, developed and inspired thousands of people. Following are some ways you can develop your people:
Plan. The biggest thing that will help your key people make right decisions is to have a business plan. If you don’t have one, you are flying by the seat of your pants and setting them up for failure. Take a piece of paper and write down your sales target. Write down how many employees you want to have. Write down what your ideal customer looks like. All these things will help your key people navigate the bus well.
Refresh. Your key people will have more responsibility than your other employees. Give them time to refresh their minds. Encourage them to take time off to attend things like family events, field trips, and church functions. This can help rest their minds and souls.
Empower. Empower your key people in systems, processes, and operations. In our business, there is a system for how an order comes in all the way through to when it ships out the door. This process must be clear to our key employees. Again, where communication is clear, accountability is fair.
Delegate. Delegate to your people and let them have the reins. How does it feel to have people better equipped than you to do things you used to? Does your heart burn within you, or do you get belly burn? Continually teach your people. Lead according to their dreams, coach according to their weaknesses, mentor according to their opportunities, delegate according to their strengths, and relate according to their personalities. Like Moses, when the key people are in the right seat, it takes a load off you as the owner.
Handling People Problems
One of the most important things to do with your key people is to stay in touch. Daily walk-throughs, stand-up meetings, and gathering at the shop before crews leave are all ways you can stay in touch. Stay in the loop with your key people so that you can help solve problems before they become major. If you have a problem at hand, here are some steps you can take to handle it correctly:
First, determine the objective or results you want after the process is complete. How is this supposed to end? After you’ve determined this, get the facts; do not jump to conclusions. Get the whole story. If there are gaps, you don’t have all the facts!
Next, discuss some options and ideas to solve the problem. Before putting the solution to action, however, check and double check whether it is the best option. Does it affect other departments? Does it affect production? Will it add stress or make the problem worse? If not, then take action.
When problem solving, watch the timing. Mondays and Fridays are not good days to solve problems. Also, use the sandwich approach. Start with a positive and then go over the meat of the problem, making sure the person understands the problem and what is expected of them. And then end on a positive note. This is vital when dealing with problems that include your key people.
Don’t just watch for problems but also watch for improvements in output or relationships. Praise the employee on wins.
Becoming A Key Employee
The question might be asked, “How do I become a key person?” The one thing I would say is to be principle centered. What this means in simple terms is to focus more on the principles and values that other key people have around you and less on practices. If you have the correct principles and values, then the practice will be what it needs to be.
Look around your community and find a key person in an organization. Make them your role model and follow them. Have lunch with this person. Ask questions and share stories. And then ask yourself, what is keeping you from doing only one thing this person does extremely well? People relate with people. At the end of the day, we are all wired the same and all on one level.
As you go through daily life, try to be the leader that you would want to follow. Meditate and pray that God would help you to be the leader He wants you to be. Find examples of good leaders in stories from the Bible. What did these key people do that was right and what did they do that was wrong?
Summary
Finding, developing, and leading key people can be a blessing in so many ways. It brings joy to see others grow and bloom into something greater than you ever thought possible. Having key people in place in your business gives you less stress and more time to spend with family and friends. It helps you step back, lay out a vision, and develop a plan. Best of all, it releases people to flourish and be who God made them to be!
Gabriel Yoder is married and has two sons. He is a partner in a family business, L & J Companies. His primary roles include strategic planning, marketing, and getting the right people in the right seats.