Driving Your Team Forward with a CEO Workcation
Episode 611: Show Notes
When we first decided to take a workcation, there was no way of knowing just how beneficial it would be. We have always added in times to do planning sessions and pin down what we want, but what we have learned is that creating a dedicated time to make sure it happens is so, so important. The only way for our business to move forward in the past was for us to hop on the phone with one another, and brainstorm ideas. But as our roles have shifted, this hasn’t happened as often. That’s why we’ve carved out CEO time on our to-do list, to help us have the correct focus.
We’ve all spent so many years working for businesses that are not structured well, not managed well, and that took all the lessons we didn’t like and implemented them in the workplace. This is the extreme opposite of many of our efforts to create flexible environments that take into account all of our humanity. But what we’ve found is that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Not having boundaries or expectations doesn’t help anyone either!
To us, knowing that we had the time to think and brainstorm without boundaries, but also adding boundaries to make the follow-through inevitable, was everything! It’s so important to add enough momentum to make sure that you achieve what you’re hoping to achieve. When you take incremental steps, it doesn’t feel like you’re eating the whole pie at once! Our main takeaways from the experience were that there’s a difference between the conversations that are had within leadership and team meetings, and within the room where it’s just you and your business partner. It’s so important that this happens periodically for the good of the business. That’s the high-level stuff that moves everything forward. If you’re not ahead of your people, they’re not going to know where to go.
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The new way we're measuring goals that's going to be beneficial for our entire team
To identify your major objectives, you have to have dedicated time for high-level planning, messaging, growth, and management. More than setting KPIs, we want to identify how to better run our meetings, how to better make use of everybody’s time, and how to create the correct messaging for an upcoming project.
What we discovered is that first, we needed to look at our ‘why’; the motivation behind what we were doing. Only then could we move beyond this to explore our ‘how’ and map out the logistics we needed to put in place to get there. We were surprised at how quickly we knocked these important things out of the park!
Our #1 takeaways from spending the weekend on our workcation
The order of how you approach things might be different if you’re a solopreneur, but there are two of us, so we met up on a Friday afternoon, with a commitment not to check out until Sunday morning. Remember, when you’re operating at such a high level, your brain is turned up to 100% all the time, so it isn’t sustainable to block out a ton of time for this, nor is it necessary to wear yourself out that way.
On Friday, we focused on the art. We dedicated this evening to asking questions, freethinking, vision casting, note-taking, and creating a vision. On Saturday, we considered how we were going to bring it all to life by creating a solid architecture. We alternated between left and right-brained activities all weekend and that was so constructive for us!
The two key areas you need to start thinking about when it comes to your values, process, and how you implement ideas
People tend to think about mission, vision, and values, think it sounds important, and then move on. Building an ethos according to which we run our company has enabled us to create a backbone to teach, educate, and train other people. When it’s just a couple of people, your culture is made up of the individual personalities that make up your company.
Different terms mean different things to different people. For us, being service-minded means going above and beyond for our audience. Charging our team with that principle has made them show up for our customers just as we would, and we love to see that! The architecture of each value is so important.
Roles are still important to us, KPIs are still important to us, but we are testing an OKR structure. If you think about the difference between a goal, an OKR, and a KPI, a goal is a loosely defined, a KPI is a lot more specific, and an OKR allows for just the amount of flexibility that we are after.
It takes so much time and so much intention to make structural changes in our internal messaging. We have made a shift to being much less focused on tasks, and much more focused on moving towards an outcome. Making the effort is the important part, getting the data, and helping you to understand how you’ve reached it, or not reached it is what’s important!
Quote This
Identify what are your major objectives by having dedicated time for high-level planning, high-level messaging, high-level growth, and high-level management.
Highlights
The new way we're measuring goals that's going to be beneficial for our entire team. [0:06:18]
Our #1 takeaways from spending the weekend on our workcation. [0:09:06]
The two key areas you need to start thinking about when it comes to your values, process, and how you implement ideas. [0:13:30]
ON TODAY’S SHOW
Abagail & Emylee
The Strategy Hour Podcast
We help overwhelmed and creative entrepreneurs break down their Oprah-sized dreams to create a functioning command center to tame the chaos of their business. Basically, we think you’re totally bomb diggity, we’re about to uplevel the shiz out of your business.
KEY TOPICS
Workcation, KPIs, Goal-setting, Messaging, High-level planning
