Building Your Team for Success
Feb. 15, 2010 by Heidi BohiYou’ll never be expected to “drop and give me 50” when taking over the operations of your franchise, but as you ease into your new business leadership role, you can expect to see a direct correlation between the team-building training you received in the military and the skill-set it takes to oversee the day-to-day management of a profitable franchise.
Communication, building trust, confidence, leading by example, knowing your limitations, and relying on the skills you already have – these are some of the mission-critical, team-building skills you learned in the military that will also be essential for motivating your employees, while growing the respect and trust of those at the corporate franchisor level. It is these same methods of conquest that will ultimately serve as a model for having a successful business that leads your franchise to defeat the competition, while maintaining a path of success and establishing a perfectly functioning unit of delegation among employees.
How do you and other veterans transfer your experience into operating a successful, customer-friendly civilian team through cooperative exercises? Contrary to military command, franchise operations emphasize the idea of lateral, not hierarchical leadership. At the same time, leadership within a franchise is not a luck-of-the-draw talent, but a skill that is developed and refined by taking risks, applying personal responsibility, and guiding from the front.
Owning and managing a franchise requires skills in many different areas. Like military team-building, your level of success will begin once you choose your franchise, a decision you will make in part, according to which skills you bring to the table, and will ultimately be a measurement of how much time you invest in continually striving to be better and better. The best way to do this, as was taught during your military days, is by knowing what you are getting into and relying on the tools you already have, including business, people, and management skills, instead of simply relying on others to tell you what to do. From there, it is a matter of reminding yourself that you served in the military – which is one of the best franchise training backgrounds available – and having faith in your natural capabilities and the ability to control and use the tools and skills you have for building a successful franchise business. Remember: Some level of aggressiveness is rewarded, planning is paramount, training is optimizing, collaboration is encouraged, and teamwork is critical to personal and mission success.
