Horses for Courses

Once you have got the right people in your team, the trick is to make sure they are in the right roles.

A well-known ex-international footballer was drafted into a management role when his boss was sacked. He asked his wife to comment on the eleven that he had proudly selected for his first match in charge. She then pointed out that while it was undoubtedly an outstanding eleven, the lack of a goalkeeper might be a handicap!

Some people are natural managers but for the rest of us, following a few golden rules will always help:

• Find out what motivates people. If it's just money (and very few people are motivated purely by this) then bonuses and financial targets are a must. If it's working in a nice environment, spend some money making it nice. Not everyone is motivated by the same things you are.
  
  
• They are not you and they never will be. Business owners can get frustrated trying to make employees into miniature versions of themselves and expecting them to think through problems in the same way that they would. It's not going to happen and it's no bad thing. A good business needs a variety of personalities to be able to develop.
  
  
• Give people job descriptions but don't let them hide behind them. Everyone needs to know what their responsibilities are (in writing) but make everyone aware that at times they will have to roll up their sleeves and help colleagues that are struggling or solve problems that were not of their making
  
  
• Continually work on your systems so that your best people can get on with making a difference and are not always running around correcting errors
  
  
• Delegate more. If you let everyone rely on you, you will never get the best from your team
  
  
• Make sure that there is a discussion process to help people learn from mistakes but do not allow your business to develop a blame culture.

Finally, play to people's strengths. Some people are good at organisation but poor at dealing with customers. Allow them the freedom to organise certain sections of the business and leave the face-to-face stuff to those that are good at it.

Working to your people's strengths and working round their weaknesses will ensure you get the best from everyone. It's horses for courses as the punters would say.