Why Your Team Can't Meet Their Goals

First time leaders often wonder why their team can't seem to meet their business goals. You may be surprised to learn that it's not the team but the leader that is often the cause.

Here are 5 behaviors to watch out for:

1. You Make 99% of The Decisions

2. You’re a KPI Hoarder

3. You Don’t Use a Decision Making Framework

4. Your Focus Is On Crossing Tasks Off Your List To Get A Dopamine Rush

5. Your Team Doesn't Have An Operational System to Work In

Let’s dive deeper into each one.

You Make 99% of The Decisions

The fear of failure creates an irrational need for control. I felt this with my first business. I decided that to make sure nothing went wrong, I'd make all the decisions in the business. It exhausted me, while demoralizing my team.

What does this look like? You might wonder why your team can’t run without you. Or feel that you don’t have people who can think on their own, or solve problems without you.

Instead of trusting that they are closer to the problem and capable, you insert yourself in, holding them back. They quickly learn that their job is to tee up the problem, while you make the decision on what to do. You do their job, not yours.

Your job is to help them make decisions by removing obstacles out of their way.

Your job is to empower your team so they can run without you.

You’re a KPI Hoarder

Tracking too many KPIs is counterproductive as too much information becomes useless. It's a waste of time, energy, and attention.

Instead, keep track of a few KPIs that will help you get to the business outcomes you want.

You Don’t Use a Decision Making Framework

Without one, you can’t quickly prioritize the most important areas to work on for the business. Instead decisions become heavy, hard and feel like the world will collapse if you get it wrong.

The more time you spend over-analyzing, the less chance your team has of meeting their goals.

The most successful businesses consistently make quick, high-quality decisions. A simple decision making framework will help you remove the emotion out of prioritizing.

Your Focus Is On Crossing Tasks Off Your List To Get A Dopamine Rush

Ahhh, the feeling of getting things done... even when they are not where your time should be spent. You know someone else should have done these, but you can do them faster than they can.

The business needs you to work on its most important priorities, but you don’t have time for that, because, well…dopamine.

My friend Chase recently shared his rabbit hole time waster. As did I. We all do it, but if you let this get the best of you...you're screwed my friend.

Your Team Doesn't Have An Operational System to Work In

Instead, communication is fragmented and messy, so they have a tough time doing their job. They’re constantly distracted without boundaries protecting their time and headspace, which creates anxiety and stress.

A team achieves outcomes with less effort when they spend their time focusing on doing their best work. Removing the chaos with an operational system helps your team know where to communicate and how. It's easy to find information, so energy is preserved, not wasted.

Decide early where you want your team to spend their time, energy and efforts. Do you want it spent on all the crazy distractions? Or on figuring out how to achieve the desired business outcomes?

Here's an example of what we use for running Butlr. Ours is Notion based, but you can use whatever platform you prefer. The key is to have a central location where the team’s work is organized, resources are easy to access, and communication is centralized.

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In Summary

When your team is not reaching their outcomes, take a hard look at whether you're what's standing in their way.