How Effectively Do You Lead Your Team Through its Seasons?
Every team, industry, or organization has seasons. How much of an expert are you at leading your team through its seasons?
First, what are the seasons for your team?
They may be defined by specific dates on the calendar or the actual seasons of spring, summer, fall, and winter. Or, similar to sports seasons; preseason, in-season, postseason, or out-of-season. Name the seasons for your industry.
What expertise do you need in the following three areas for each season?
- Industry – knowledge of the cycle of the industry
- Metrics – what and how to measure performance during each season
- Planning – the knowledge and skills to effectively plan for what is next
Let’s look at a few examples. As we examine the examples, consider your leadership role and how this applies to you.
Education
We are all familiar with the distinct seasons of education. During Summer, school is not in full session, often scaled-down summer programs. Fall semester and spring semester These are also dependent on the level of education.
Real Estate
Depending on location real estate has several forces setting seasons. It can be driven by the calendar, seasons, weather, and market conditions.
Retail
A major sector of this industry revolves around the holiday retail season. Automotive retail revolves around car shows, new model introductions, and seasonal sales. Tech retail often focuses on development cycles
Let’s get started with how you lead your team through its seasons.
Name and define the seasons for your team and state the specifics that distinguish each season. Such as business development, marketing, clearing or creating inventory, ordering, or strategy development
Step two is to establish the metrics for success for each season. What are the metrics and how will you measure them?
Examples of metrics. Industries with periods of concentrated customer interactions require a hiring phase. Think about delivery services during the holiday. Important metrics may be: the number of applicants, returning seasonal employees, and predicted volume of sales.
For other industries, ordering inventory, monitoring supply chain performance, expenditures, cash on hand, predicted revenue, or assessing market conditions may be the important metrics.
What are the important metrics for your industry during the operation of each season?
You now have the seasons defined with their specifics and the metrics to evaluate performance. The next area of expertise to evaluate is the planning and preparation phase. For each season to be successful, there is a planning phase leading up to that season. The expertise required to plan for a season may be significantly different than the expertise to run the operations of a season.
Industries with high seasonal labor requirements come to mind. The planning phase for construction is much different than the labor requirement when the construction starts. Hospitality and retail are similar.
To be a successful leader the mandate is to lead the organization in operations for the current season while simultaneously planning for the next.
How does this model inform you for your professional development?
For most leaders, this provides a broader perspective of their organization and inspires development for them and their team. It often affects hiring and staffing processes as they realize the experience and skill sets required for planning and operations are often significantly different.
To lead both functions requires you to have planning and operational skills.
How well are you leading in both tracks? Leaders cognizant of executing well on both modes deliberately shape their organization. They develop themselves and their teams based on the requirements to plan and execute in each season measured against the right metrics.
How would this methodology inform your path forward for your team?
