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Live at Fairfield Library! Small business owners, entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations often find themselves caught between a “rock and a hard place.”

Now this is the time of year when all small businesses will be in hiring mode. Michael Collins in Good to Great once said that the task is not just getting people on the bus, but getting people in the right seats on the bus.  Finding people is tough but finding the right people is tougher especially today with so few candidates available in the labor pool that can actually live on Cape Cod & the Islands.

The new digital world has helped small business owners focus on hiring, managing, retaining, and developing their workforce.

Avoid common mistakes that create the wrong culture and lead to costly legal trouble and poorly engaged employees who leave.

Avoid common mistakes that create the wrong culture and lead to costly legal trouble and poorly engaged employees who leave.

• Your team doesn’t all fit into a cookie cutter, so it’s the responsibility of the owner/manager/leader to learn what motivates and make each one thrive.
• True leaders promote others to be leaders. Check-in with each individual on a regular basis.
• Be human.  At the end of the day, business is a people business and they come first whether they are your customers or your employees.
• Earn each individual's trust and enter into meaningful, purposeful relationships.
• Value-based leadership creates innovative, high-functioning teams.

Now is the time of year when all small businesses will be in the hiring mode.

Michael Collins, in “Good to Great,” once said that the task is not just getting people on the bus, but getting people in the right seats on the bus. Finding people is tough, but finding the right people is tougher – especially today with so few candidates available in the labor pool that can actually live on Cape Cod & the Islands.

Leadership is often interpreted as being tough, mission-focused and taking a leave-no-prisoners approach; much like George Patton’s style of leading his troops in WWII and Jack Welch at GE.  But today as leadership in business evolves we need to design empathy into the formula of best practices.  Why?  To retain, cultivate and motivate the best talent we have taken so much time and so many resources to recruit, bring on board, and train.

Join SCORE East Central Iowa for a Peer-Group Networking Opportunity, Facilitated by SCORE Mentors.