As businesses grow and change, employees’ roles need to change as well. Making that transition from a former role to a new one, with different responsibilities and new relationships with the rest of the team, can be difficult, for the individual and for the team. Leaders have a key part to play in making those transitions successful.

In this podcast, Gail and Erin talk about how they are dealing with some transitions taking place within their own company. Their conversation wandered into some insightful side trips along the way.

Erin shared that during some leadership team planning and strategizing sessions earlier this year, she realized that, given the plans emerging for growing the business, she needed to change her role in the company. That got her thinking about where she needed to focus in order to really help the business as it entered this next phase.

Reflecting on what that role might be, Erin came to see she would have to switch from being someone who wore a lot of different hats to someone who put more of her effort into concentrating on fewer areas of responsibility. And that meant (1) she would have to adjust to a new set of priorities and a different way of interacting with the rest of the team, and (2) other members of the team would have to assume some of the roles and responsibilities she was giving up, which meant they were going to go through a transition as well.

Gail observed that as your business grows, employees’ contributions will become less task-specific; each employee will become less of a generalist and more of a specialist. Erin added that in instigating those transitions it’s important to focus on people’s gifts and talents to find the right place for them in the company.

During those times of transition, leaders have to think ahead and make a plan before initiating such a transition, not only because of all the dislocations and rearrangements that will take place, but also because such changes evoke a lot of emotions that will need to be worked through.

They should be thinking about what each team member needs to be successful in a new role and what the rest of the team needs in order to be able to take on new responsibilities from the other team member whose role has changed.

Erin said she had come to realize that while transitions can be hard, the thing that makes them easier is to talk about them. Gail added that leaders need to watch for and have conversations with team members about what makes them happy about their job and about what they don’t like about their job to gauge how they can best contribute to the company.

In closing, Gail cited three takeaways she noted down during their conversation

To find out how Gail goes about identifying the “superpower” in each of her employees, what it means to show up with your cup full and why it matters, and Erin’s big insight into how having the proper communication channels can make all the difference to how smoothly your business runs, listen to the entire podcast.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full shownotes here: https://gaildoby.com/s5e10-shownotes