Our parents used this phrase when talking about our work habits and their parents said the same about them. In the Family Entertainment Center world, it is a given that we work with many young people. However, the work world today is incredibly diverse in age, ethnicity, talent, knowledge, values, and beliefs.
With diversity comes complexity, tolerance, confusion, growth, learning, challenge, opportunity, and a great deal of patience.
Often times in business there is a single over-arching goal or vision. In my mind, the family entertainment market sees that goal as service to the guest in order to make memories.
Here’s where complexity sets in. In addition to the business’ vision of creating that service based experience, the business owner and the front line team members have independent goals that motivate them to come to work every day. The business owner’s goal might be to create a sustainable (profitable) business in order to provide entertainment and jobs in his/her community. A frontline team member may be most concerned about making enough money to buy their first car.
You see what I mean about complex and diverse. It’s no wonder that leading a team can be difficult and frustrating at times.
Have you taken the time to find out what your team members value? Do you know why they work at your center?
If you use the analogy of a sports team it’s easier to see how a diverse group of people come together for the purpose of a single mission. A baseball team, for example, has 9 people with different backgrounds and positions on the team. Each of those positions requires something different from each team member. Each player has differing results when they go to bat. Some of the players are superstars and some of them are supporting team players. And the goal is clear. They are trying to score enough runs and keep their opponents from scoring at all in order to win the game. It’s clear.
I’m not sure that we do a good enough job in business defining what it means to win the game. How are you keeping score? Does everyone on the team know when you’ve hit the single or the winning run? What’s the focus?
Listen, you can’t adequately coach your team if there is no clear definition of how you play the game. Your team has to know how to score when they are playing offense and when to play defense in order to minimize the competition.
I encourage you to think about the rules of the game when it comes to your business. Clearly, state what it takes to play for your team. Recruit players that understand and buy into those rules of the game. Then create a meaningful scoreboard. Keep track of the things that are most important to you winning the game. I promise it will make a big difference.
