Happy Teams in Happy Places

People in happy places build happy teams. Do you have the right person in the right seat?

Yesterday I was in my happy place. Playing golf on the Littlestone Links for the first time in a year.

On the drive home I was mulling over why is it my happy place and do I have lots of other happy places. I do. Each one means something slightly different to me but the one thing in common is they all bring me joy and time flies when I am there.

Now as a Scale Up Business Coach my thoughts turned the business’s I work with. Soon enough I realised that the super successful ones, all have people who are in their happy places.

Not only doing what they love but making a difference. There’s no doubt that people in their happy places driven by a strong purpose achieve much more than those who aren’t.

I see this in family businesses where Mum and Dad ‘push’ their child into taking over the business but the child doesn’t care, doesn’t love it and its certainly not their happy place. I’ve also seen the complete reverse, a child with even more purpose and passion than their parents.

In other businesses it’s a round peg in a square hole problem or as Gino Wickman of Traction fame puts it, RPRS right person, right seat or WPWS wrong person, wrong seat! Any business owner building their team needs to have RPRS. If not action is needed and fast. Failing to act continues the constant headaches for the owner and the rest of the business. 2 options. Exit them or move them to the ‘right seat’ elsewhere in the organisation. Whichever it is do it quickly.

But what if you are the business owner and you are not in the right seat. Over the years I have met numerous business owners who started a business because they loved what they did. Only later do they find out that ‘running the business’ was stopping them doing what they loved.

John was just that person, an amazing farm machinery mechanic who had a brilliant knack of being able to ‘adjust’ machines for new tasks. He’d make bits and pieces and hey presto they worked. He set up the business and loved it, he’d spend hours - he was in his happy place!

News spread fast business was growing but John was always on the shopfloor working on ‘adjustments’, his happy place. But as success grew his business stumbled along most things except the ‘adjustments’ weren’t getting done. John didn’t love doing them, in fact he never wanted to do them and the business was in a real pickle, full of promise but risked closing down.

The solution was to find a general manager to run the business whilst John could be the Chief Ideas Officer, talking to clients, solving their problems and doing what he loved whilst a fantastic GM ran the business. Over the next couple of years, the business doubled and doubled again…

So, as you move through today, think about how many happy places you have visited, is that enough for you? If your work happy places are now unhappy places, then it’s time to make some changes. If you are frustrated that you or your team aren’t in their happy places, then I can help…?