Since Khidmah is posed for massive growth and we are currently hiring a large number of team members, YOU need to ask yourself – “Who are you surrounding yourself with?  Are they ‘Improving’ Team Members?”

We need to ask the following questions concerning adding people to our Khidmah Team:  Does the candidate do all of the following?

1. Improves the Team.
   We must know our team’s weaknesses and needs in the future.  Each new member needs to add something to the team, wheather it is skills, knowledge, experience, etc. that currently is needed or will be needed for team success in the future.
2. Improves you as the Leader.
   Ouch!  This is a tough one for most leaders – YOU MUST KNOW YOUR WEAKNESSES AS A LEADER AND SURROUND YOURSELF WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE BETTER THAN YOU AT YOUR WEAKNESS!
   Yes, as a leader you have a weakness.  You might not admit is, which is another weakness.  What are your weaknesses?  Do you know?  When you know your weakness, add someone to your team that is really good at what you are not.  Here is a good tip:  Whatever you hate to do – find someone that it is there passion.  That team member should be your right hand person.
   During our meeting, I discussed how our Director of Services is really good at technical and operations of buildings.  One of my weaknesses is the techinical and engineering components of a building.  My weakness is his love and passion.  So he complements me as the leader and improves our team.  I am personally and professionally learning from him each and every day.  He is giving me a great education in my area of weakness.  Neil improves me.
3. You can Improve them.
   When you look at the new candidate, can someone on your current team improve the candidates weaknesses?  Again, as stated above, we all have weaknesses.  So can someone improve the candidate and make them better because they joined Khidmah.  The answer must be Yes.  If people are progressing and moving to new levels in areas of their weaknesses, they will more enjoy their position and more enjoy contributing to the vision and mission because they are personally benefiting from the relationship.
   One of the things we do at Khidmah is give every new employee the Birkman Test that shows people’s natural strengths, likes, and interests.   It also shows how they handle stressful situations.  These tests are then given to their Leader and to the new employee for learning by each.

LEADERSHIP PIT FALL: If I hire good poeple that are better than me at my weakness or even in general, then they will make me look bad and I will be replaced by them.  THIS IS FALSE!  Absolutately and completely!

Let’s discuss what is the downward spiral of NOT hiring Improving people that are better than the leader.  This is what happens when  the three objectives above are not met:

• Leader decides that he cannot hire people that are better than him.  He wants to keep control of the company/department and make sure he  is the smarted person in the room.  (THIS IS WHERE THE PROBLEM STARTS)
• At first, the leader can do everything, but as the company/department grows, it puts more and more things on the desk of the leader.  The leader begins to work weekends and late nights.  Before long, even with working the weekends, things are not getting done.
• The pressure/stress builds on the leader – the leader is doing things they are not good at which takes the leader extra time and energy.
  From my example of me and Neil:  Looking at the technical part of buildings is easy for Neil and comes second nature to him.  However, if Neil were not a Leader of the Khidmah team, then I would be spending time looking at the technical aspects of the buildings that we manage.  This would be very stressful to me and take additional time and energy vs. what it would take Neil to perform the same task.
• The Leader becomes the controller, and not the leader.  He begins to manage and not lead.  If the leader does not have people surrounding himself to delegate tasks to, they become the bottleneck and begin controlling everything.
• Because the leader has no one surrounding him, he does not empower anyone to make decisions.
• High achieving people looking to join the company see noone empowered and thus decide not to join.
• High achieving people within the company, see noone empowered and see the bottleneck and leave the organization.
• With high achieving people not joining the organizaiton and high achieving people within the organization leaving – there is a depletion of good talent to grow the company – again adding to the focus/pressure/stress on the leader.
• With a depletion of talent, there comes a depletion of quality of work or service from the company.  The company begins to not meet its objectives and which increases the pressure on the leader.
• More work and responsibility for the leader which means leader is unable to think or make decisions strategically.

Basically, all of the above, lead to one of two things (or both) – the leader leaves the company or the company/department fails.

So now that we have discussed what we want to avoid and how not surrounding yourself with “improving” team members , let’s talk about the right way of doing it.

• Leader correctly assesses the team and himself.  Again, this is an Ouch.  It hurts, but if you don’t look at yourself and the organization to assess what it correctly needs, you are wasting your time.  The leader determine what is needed and recruits based on weaknesses of the team – Improves the Team; Improves the Leader; and You Improve the new team member.
• Leader makes a decision to hire people that are “better than he  is.”
• As these new team members are trained and begin to understand the Vision and Team Culture, the leader is able to give away or empower them to ”take things off his plate or responsibility.”
• As the leader is able to give things to the team members, he is able to focus on leadership of the team and the strategy on where the team is heading.
• As the team members are given more responsiblity, they are encouraged to take “ownership” in the process and begin to work in their area of strength.
• High Achievers from outside the organization are drawn to the organization because of the success, and they see people being empowered – increasing talent coming into the team.
• High Achievers within the organization are encouraged that they will have the opportunities within this organization to rise to their next level - increasing retention of good talent.
• Momentum begins to build from inside the organization with empowerment and recognition.  With momentum, people are able to do more because of the positive sysnergies that exist.
• The leader with more time to focus on leading begins to see new opportunites for the developing and growing team, and more ways to use the team for the companies benefit.  These new opportunities allow new team members the chance to lead, thus building more momentum.
• The company no longer depends on the leader to do anything more than lead (which is his job).  The team is strong, allowing people to leave the company without causing the company to suffer.
• The leader is recognized for allowing the team to grow and additional opportunities are open for the leader within the company.

As we discussed in our meeting, this cycle builds on itself and has a life of its own.

One key takeaway that we discussed at the end of this training was – Leaders must be continually giving away responsibilty and empowering people in order to grow.  The example above on how NOT to lead was based around the leader taking on more and more duties and resposiblities – but thereby causing the bottleneck.  However, the correct way is just the opposite, the leader surrounds himself with good talented people and continues to give away responsiblities and “power” to allow the organization to grow.

Hope this helped someone!

Lead On!

Sutton