Today, I’ll share three ideas on how to step more into a CEO role without losing your grip on the organization or completely switching persona overnight.  

 You have read countless articles on leadership and management.  They all make sense but you are wondering how to level up after you have been hands-on for many years.  

 Of course, as a leader you should focus on …

·      vision and strategy - but who takes care of the daily work?

·      the big picture - but who makes sure monthly results looks good?

 Your team depends on your guidance since you have been functional expert and key decision maker for many years.  Your customers want to speak with no one other than you because you have been their contact person in the past. 

How can you stretch out of doing so much yourself into leading more strategically without risking daily operations get out of whack. 

The Key is to Slowly Change How You Interact With Your Team 

 Here are three steps you can start with: 

1.    Ask Questions Instead of Giving Direction 

Most of the time you are in a rush.  It’s easier to tell people what to do in the moment than curating their ability to handle situations themselves.  

Next time, when an employee asks for direction, simply ask what they would do in this situation. Listen and dig deeper to understand their rationale especially when it’s different from what you would have done.  

This kind of interaction builds trust.  It allows you to better understand your employee’s capabilities and gives you opportunity for talent development. 

As CEO you can’t make all decisions yourself, instead you have to manage how decisions are made. 

2.    Raise Your Expectations of Your Team               

Stretch them into thinking beyond following your direction.

 A business needs to constantly evolve as new technologies emerge.  There are new services and smarter ways to organize the work, especially when your business is growing. 

You don’t have time to think about all these improvements yourself. 

But someone has to!  So set the expectation that everyone on your team is engaged in finding better ways of getting the work done and providing better services to your customers. 

3.    Talk About the Big Picture

 Give your team context about where you want to take your business next. 

 How much do you want to grow, what new services, markets or geographies do you want to expand into?  

 Understanding the big picture will help your team come up with the ideas and solutions that support your strategic direction.

 Here’s the truth … if you want to secure the long-term viability of your business you can’t get consumed by every detail. 

 If you take these steps, you will see your team in a different light.  You’ll have insights into who you can delegate more responsibility to and who would be a great leader of people.  

 Now you can slowly build the support system that you need if you want to level up. 

 If this episode resonates and you realize that this issue is holding you back from the results you want, let’s book a strategy session.  

 It’s 90 minutes where we can brainstorm the steps you can specifically take to level up.   

Read more at www.powerupyourteam.com/8

 This episode is for women business owners who want to be less hands-on while feeling confident that daily operations are running smoothly. 

I will introduce one critical element that you need to have in place once more hands are on deck. 

Over the years, you have built a solid team and managed to put yourself in a position where you can spend more time on strategic matters such as scanning industry trends, attracting new customers and ideating new services. 

You know these activities are important to ensure the longevity of your business. 

But repeatedly there are issues and you realize that your team struggles with making decisions when several departments or groups need to get involved. 

You hear the scuttlebutt about struggles on finding consensus on what to do in certain situations. Team members are telling you about their peers who are difficult to work with. You can even feel the thick air when you are back in the office. 

No matter who you ask you can’t get to the bottom of the issue. 

You wished you knew when and where to get involved to drive swift action. On some days you are asking yourself “can’t they just grow up and figure this out’? 

The key ingredient is Governance.

That may be a big and scary word for you especially because it can lead to bureaucracy if it’s overdone. What I am talking about are fundamental rules for collaboration and decision making among your team members. 

The truth is: Governance is a critical aspect of your organizational design. The larger your team, the more critical it is.

Here are 5 steps you can take to that allow you to level up while you team is servicing your current customers and taking care of routine operational tasks. 

1.    Identify key steps along your value chain

Look at your business end-to-end. What are the key steps that need to happen between securing a deal and getting paid? 

Examples are: negotiate statement of work, assemble account team, set up billing, train staff, engage business partners, create project plan, schedule milestone events with client. Each business is different.

2.    Decide what key decisions need to be made

They range from deciding to accept the statement of work to selecting the account team, or, managing tradeoffs that occur during scheduling.  

And then there are countless small decisions such as how to react when the customer is not paying on time, or, a vendor is late with their delivery. 

In one business, I had to deal with the consequences of selling services that could not be delivered effectively with our operational capabilities. The sales team was incentivized to sell.  There was no governance designed between sales and operations. 

 That was a painful experience. We ended up transacting primarily on spreadsheets because our processing systems were not setup for this type service. That made the whole market segment unsustainable for us and we decided to exit. 

3.    Decide who needs to provide input

 As your organization is growing you have team members that are experts in their field and know more about an aspect of your organization than you do yourself. 

I learned my lesson in the example I just gave. The approval and final signature of the statement of work was a critical decision point that my team had to get right. 

Instead of pulling in the reigns to review and approve each SOW myself, I made sure people from customer service, operations and IT were involved in evaluating each opportunity

Read on at www.PowerUpYourTeam,com/7 to find out step number 4 and 5. 

 This episode is for business women who are trying to squeeze time for themselves into an already packed schedule. 

You love your business and you spend every waking minute making it the success you want. 

You are trying to be there for everyone – your employees and business partners, family, friends and neighbors. Over the years, you have managed to build a tight schedule to accommodate all people you care about. Meetings and obligations are stacked up and you are feeling always behind. 

·       But what about you? 

·       Do you feel selfish when you take time for yourself? 

·       Do you make plans to exercise but then something more important pops up? 

 For many years, I was focused 100 % on work and neglected everything else. After all, I loved my job. My favorite boss once said in a performance review “You need more work-life balance”. And I answered with a smirk: “It’s balanced. It's 100% work and that how I want it.”

I remember the bad conscience that crept in when I took time for myself during the workday. Even important appointments such as a dentist or doctor’s visits made me feel like an absentee. 

I thought as the senior person on the team I have to be present all the time. 

Whenever I got promoted, I often spend weekends working to get a handle on the role. With hindsight, it really was my way to justify the promotion to myself. 

Over the years, I realized that being always there, multitasking or over-subscribing does not make me a better leader. What does make a better leader is thoughtfulness, new perspective and positive energy.

I started to honor my workout routines and arrived at the office 30 minutes later. That was ok. 

As a business owner myself, I have more leeway to design my work day. I deliberately build time for exercise and getting fresh air into my schedule so I can be at my best serving my clients. 

As a business owner, you also have the flexibility to design your work day as you wish.

Try on this new perspective: 

Taking Time to Yourself is an Investment into New Ideas and Perspectives that Benefit all People Around You. 

If you enjoy playing an instrument, playing team sports, reading or walking outside then build it into your schedule. Take time for activities that lift your heart up and bring you joy. 

Joy is the feeling we are after here. It gives us a return on investment in such that we come out with fresh thoughts, new ideas and different perspectives. They may be simple things such as the birthday present for your son or solutions to large business problems you have been stewing over.

The state where we become fully immersed in an activity and are able to tune all distractions is called Flow. During that process we automatically make space in our brains to produce to new ideas and perspectives.

This flow state can happen at work, too. 

I always loved to solve business problems related to people, process and technology and make them work better. I would lose track of time when I saw a pattern in data or information that led me towards figuring out why things weren’t working as they should.  

Which activities do you enjoy so much that you are losing track of time?  Maybe it’s…

·       Selling your services and get energized by winning a deal 

·       Meeting new prospects at large conferences

·       Snuggling into your office and dreaming up your next great service.  

So instead of counting the minutes or hours you are not there for everybody else, here’s what you should do.  
Go to www.PowerUpYourTeam.com/6 to find out more. 

In this episode we discuss how you can turn your aspirational vision statement into a reliable operational compass for your business. 

 Welcome to episode 5. Show notes can be found online at PowerUpYourTeam.com/5

 Your vision statement serves as your guidepost and speaks to the hearts and minds of your employees.  For your suppliers and other stakeholders, it’s a convincing testament to your ambition and focus. 

 Maybe your 5-year vision is to:

·       become the go-to resource for your services in your industry

·       be the most trusted business partner in your niche market 

·       emerge as a recognized brand in a new geographic area 

It is the qualitative part of the vision statement that captures attention and solicits followership. 

But how do you know you are on a reliable path towards achieving your vision?

What do descriptions such as “strong brand”, “go-to-resource” or “trusted business partner” translate into from an operational perspective?

• To measure brand recognition, you can measure social media engagements, web site traffic or even speaking engagements. 
• To gage a level trust, you can measure your client’s willingness to recommend, their repurchase intention, or, operational measures such as on-time delivery.

By defining the financial and operational underpinnings for your vision statement you can elevate it from a nice-to-have to a primary management instrument. 

There are four groups of metrics you can use to define your future state: 

Go to www.powerupyourteam.com/5 to learn more. 

Today’s episode is for women business owners who want to make their business work splendidly well with employees working from home. I have several tips how you can keep your fingers on the pulse even though not everyone is physically in the office. 

Welcome to episode 4. Show notes can be found online at PowerUpYourTeam.com/4.

Over the past two years, work from home has become a necessity as a result of the pandemic and has proven to be a feasible option for the long haul.

Large companies are downsizing their office footprint realizing that work from home is cheaper and equally productive. Employees also recognize they are more productive and have a better work-life balance.

 You clearly see a trend as remote work becomes more popular for large and small companies across all sorts of industries. 

 And yes, you can empathize with employees who have a long commute. Generally, you are open to helping them balance personal and business life. And after all, you want to have a modern company and attract great talent.

 But you’re wondering how you can hold things together when people are not coming to the office

• How do you replace the water cooler talk and the little chit chat here and there that used to make the office so lively when people are working from home?
• How can you make sure your team continues to stay aligned, collaborates well and gets the job done when they are not on-site?
• How do you supervise the work? 

 In Episode 2, we talked about how you manage your whole ecosystem including suppliers and business partners. Just think about how you manage to pull all of them together to deliver great services to your customers. 

How You Can Supervise Remote Staff: 

1.     Ensure everyone has the proper environment & technology to work effectively

 For instance, they may need a private space to concentrate and participate in business calls without being interrupted. In addition to standard work systems, they need technology to connect with each other via video

2.     Schedule 15-minute morning calls 

That can happen daily or at another frequency depending on the rhythm of work. Discuss priorities for the day and ensure everyone is set up for success. If you have an organization with several layers, ask your direct reports to do the same with their teams.

3.     Schedule frequent one on one check-ins with your remote staff. 

 Yes, you have to ramp up the 1:1 touch-points since you don’t see them in the hallway. Each employee is different. How much interaction do they need to do their work AND feel included? How much information do you need from them?

 In most of my roles, my staff was geographically dispersed. No matter which location, I would see maximal 25 % of my team. I always had to ensure that the team stays aligned and everyone feels seen and heard through extra travel and touch points via phone or video. 

4.     Make sure your staff has a way to reach you quickly 

 That could be via text message or an e-mail with a certain headline that communicates “Need attention now”. You don’t want work get stuck because people don’t know how to reach out for support. 

 Maintain a Strong Community 

 That’s the one number one thing that gets most often lost by working remotely.

 You have to replace the visual element that employees had when everyone was in the office. They saw you go about your day, meet with customers, participate in staff meeting and so on.

 Continue reading at www.powerupyourteam.com/4

Your dream of owning a business has become a reality. You designed a killer service and built a respectable client base. You masterminded a terrific strategic plan and can clearly see the road ahead. You feel accomplished, full of energy and have so many more ideas. 

 But you feel as if you are doing the heavy lifting alone. So here is the key question: 

 Does anybody on your team understand your strategic plan?

 It’s time to make your team your most powerful alliance! In this episode I will let you in on the secrets for how to do that.

 Welcome to episode 3 of Power Up Your Team podcast. Show notes can be found online at PowerUpYourTeam.com/3.

 Your strategic business plan with markets research, customer needs assessment and operational requirements impressed key stakeholders such as your banker. You secured funding based on your ability to present a convincing vision for your business. 

 You are ready to roll!

 Sadly, you find yourself supervising your team more than you want to. They are clocking in and are reliably following instruction.  However, they are falling short of thinking ahead or anticipating what needs to get done.

 They often ask you for instruction and you are thinking: “Shouldn’t that be clear?”

 Sometimes it’s hard to remember to communicate why you are doing what you are doing and keep your team informed about the bigger picture beyond their immediate job.

 Well, unless you have super natural powers, your great thoughts are not automatically transmitting to the minds of your employees. Even if you share your strategic plan once or twice, the graphs and numbers that are meaningful to your banker mean nothing to your team without more context.

Go to PowerUpYourTeam.com/3 to read about 4 tips to ensure your team is fully on board.

It’s been a time of great ups and downs. Hopefully now you’re setting your sights on a new set of goals and delegating priorities that you’ve been juggling yourself.

 Not really? I get it. Most business owners struggle to stop putting out fires.

It’s high time for you to step more fully into the CEO role and that’s part of what this podcast is about.

I’m so excited you are listening to my first podcast. Find the full transcript for this episode at PowerUpYourTeam.com/1.

There are endless things you can do to scale up and grow your business. For example:

Create a completely new IT infrastructure to more effectively connect with suppliers, business partners and customers

Expand geographically to have a physical presence overseas 

Initiatives like these are critical to drive business growth. But, often forgotten, are the people who make things happen in your company.

 My passion is about building and leading resilient teams. In this podcast I’ll share all my secrets.

 First, let me share a bit about my career.

 Listen closely for the BIG TAKEAWAY I’ll offer you before I’m finished with this episode. It will be the first of many valuable insights.

 For 30 year I’ve worked for family-owned businesses and also large Fortune 100 companies in various executive roles such as Strategic Program Leader, Head of Business Operations or President. 

 Change Management for teams was the big theme throughout my career — ranging from small changes in departmental processes to new processes across entire organizations.

 I launched programs that helped every employee in the company build new habits to continuously improve how their work gets done — as small as a more user friendly spreadsheet to as large as implementing a new technology or designing a new product.

 I’m all about ensuring that people have the tools and skills to engage and their leaders have the ability to create an environment that supports those activities.  

 There was one instance in one of my roles where internal stakeholders had absolutely unreasonable expectations of the team. I dug under the surface and discovered that the technology was not adequate to produce the results expected of them. 

 In another role, the customer facing teams pursued a one-size-fits-all approach across different market segments. I communicated the specific strategies to all employees and solicited their support to fundamentally re-engineer operations front to back.

 That enabled them to meet customer expectations. More about that in another episode.

 I’m grateful for the different roles I’ve held and I enjoyed leading those large transformation programs. But over time, I felt as if I was starting over again and again.

 I was ready for a big change and decided to start my own business called Power Up Your Team where I help women business owners like you to scale up and win in the marketplace. How do I do that? You guessed it … it’s all about building resilient teams and helping you lead them. 

 Looking back … one thing kept me going all those years — my teams.

 I know first-hand that it takes so much more than a job description, a pay check and a friendly pat on the back now and then. More of that in future episodes as well. 

 A great team is the heartbeat of any organization large or small. 

 It doesn’t matter how smart your product, service or technology is or what savvy deals you’ve done with suppliers. Your company will stand and fall with the team that works for you. 

See more at www.PowerUpYourTeam.com/1

You’ve worked hard to make sure you have an awesome service, a responsive team and smart processes in place so that your business is running smoothly. 

But still, you are dealing with constant issues and fire drills. Where are they coming from?

Most business owners think about their team as the people who are on their payroll!

It’s high time for you to look at your whole eco system and that’s what I will cover in this episode.

As a small business owner, it is impossible to have all sorts of specialty skills on your full-time staff. And therefore, you are outsourcing certain tasks or even whole functions that are critical in providing services to your customers.  

If you think about it, there are so many more contributors to your business than the people reporting to you. For instance: 

·      The IT company who installed and services your CRM system

·      The call center you have outsourced routine customer service calls to

·      The media company who does all your digital marketing campaigns

·      The printing company who prints you monthly statements or marketing material 

 There are so many dependencies to ensure a seamless experience for your customers 

Sometimes, it seems it takes a whole village. 

 Here’s the point: Your ecosystem goes far beyond your immediate team. 

 Now … How can you make sure that your business is the number 1 priority for your vendors and business partners? As a small business owner, you may not be their highest priority based on revenue.

 Listen closely for the 4 things you can do to proactively build strong relationships that help to prevent fire drills.

 Negotiate Service Level Agreements (SLA)

 An example for an SLA for call center contract, for instance, specify the maximum time you want your customers spend on hold or in the voice response unit before they get to speak to a live service representative. The SLA would be something like: Hold time less than one minute. 

After all it’s your reputation that’s on the line!

Identify a Team Member to be the Point Person at the Tactical Level

Request regular SLA reviews between both teams. It helps them to stay on top of day-to-day operations and it builds relationships. Define the type of issues that you need to know about ahead of time and decide how you want them escalated to you.

You don’t want to be the last one to find out about a service interruption or any other hick-up that sends you into a tail spin. 

Have a Personal Contact at the Strategy Level 

Meet regularly and build an ongoing relationship. Share your company’s mission and vision so they become more familiar with you and your business.

 Make sure you are more than an account number to your vendor!

 Recognize Your Own AND the Vendor’s Team for Excellent Work

Nothing makes people feel more included when they are being recognized for productive collaboration.

See more at www.PowerUpYourTeam.com/2 

Power up your team podcast offers ideas for women owners of small businesses who have created a successful company with a lot of hands-on work. Now you are wondering how you can step more into the CEO role. You know that you need a strong team so that you can delegate the day-today-day stuff and focus on strategic matters to secure the long-term success of your business. 

 We will cover topics that can help you to develop your strategic road map, design a flexible adaptable organization, lead your team with authenticity, and build smart processes that allow you to keep the pulse on your business when you are no longer involved in every detail. 

 In each episode we will discuss a particular aspect, explore best practices and offer new perspectives and approaches you may try on.

 I am Martina Kuhlmeyer, Team Building Strategist and host of Power Up your Team podcast. 

 For over 30 years, I have led different organizations with teams as small as 5 to hundreds of people. I learned how to create strategic alignment, build effective structures and processes, and foster environments that empower teams to do their best work. Most recently, I became a certified professional business coach. 

 I understand how much thought and effort needs to go into building teams that can work through the toughest challenges and are motivated to continuously deliver excellent services. 

 Listeners will walk away with new insights on how to build a resilient team, step more fully into the CEO role and lead their business with confidence and ease to the next level of success. 

More at www.PowerUpYourTeam.com/0