Ben joined StorMan Software in 2002 and is now StorMan's Australian General Manager.
Title: The importance of team-building
Date: 13th June 2008
It was wonderful for the first time ever in 16 years to have all of our staff in one place. Yes I am talking about the very first StorMan team building weekend. This year the directors and I decided that it was time to take some time for ourselves and the hardworking team to sit down and discuss where we wanted to go with the company. I am pleased to say that it was a huge success.
Too often with small businesses we do the daily grind and don’t think or plan for the future. In this regard I am very happy to say that StorMan is not one of these companies. The weekend proved to be a successful and very interesting sharing of ideas and processes with all staff being able to contribute something towards a positive future for our company.
This brings me to the point - are you, as a small business, taking the time to listen to your team and the ideas and visions that they have for your company moving forward? Many times I listen to owners and staff of storage companies and get two different stories – one from the owner’s perspective and one from the staff member who does the daily grind. Therefore I thought I would share with you some of the topics that we discussed and how they are helping put our company on track for the future.
The most important topic to address first is that of communication. Everyone knows that teams work better if there is solid communication between management and staff. Many people take this as the owner needs to communicate what they need to the staff, however, there is also a need for effective communication from the staff to the owner and in a small company this can sometimes get lost.
The second item to address in a small team is that of team goals. This can be as simple as having a meeting once a week to discuss weekly performance or it can be as complex as planning the companies goals for the next 5 years. It’s important that the Owner / Manager communicate to the staff what the goals for the company are on a monthly basis so that everyone within the company can measure how they are doing in the overall picture.
Which brings me to the third major thing to discuss and that is the measurement of success; i.e. how often are we meeting the set goals, are the goals realistic and what happens next if we are or are not meeting the goals that were set.
These three things, while sounding fairly simple, can make or break a business such as self storage and even an international software company if we don’t get them right.
So for those of you out there that haven’t yet done what StorMan has just done and have a team building weekend then can I suggest whole heartedly that you get your skates on and have one. Ours was fantastic and you as StorMan customers should see the results start flowing from the ideas that we discussed over the next 3 months.
So to all of our customers thanks again for reading and I will see you in Storage land over the next few months.
PS: Check out the video of my bungee jump over on Andy's blog!
Regards,
Ben.
