It’s Saturday for me and I woke up dreaming of my next vacation. Now, I don’t know when that is going to be but I do know I’m ready! So why not start ensuring my team is ready to run the show while I’m gone? My question for you is, is your team ready for your next vacation?
Wait. 🤔 What do I need to do to ensure my team is ready you ask? Let’s talk through it.
But first, let’s remember the reason we are doing all of this prep work. Now, we can say we are preparing the team to ensure the business runs smoothly, and that’s true to a degree. However, remember that your team is running the business already each day for the most part. So, then the reason for this preparation is to ensure we feel like we can step away and unplug for a few days, right? The longer you work with your team and empower them to run the business, the less prep work you will feel like you need. So as I go through this list, be thinking about the steps you need to take with your team in order for you to have that peace of mind before you go on vacation.
Here are some suggestions, in no particular order.
Schedule the vacation in advance. Think about it this way, you have to have a target to work towards just like you work toward a milestone goal. Your team needs a date to work towards in the same way. Picking a date, also ensures you aren’t taking time away from the business when the business truly has to have you there, say during implementation or a launch.
You have to determine which activities in the business are ones that only you are doing (not ones only you can do). Teach and train the teams to do the activities only you are doing. Confirm they are doing them correctly before you leave. Now that’s one less worry you have while on vacation. (This one you can start doing now, there’s no reason to delay.)
Move any standing meetings or events off of your vacation days. Reschedule them. Now you won’t feel like you need to call to check in or see how that meeting went. The meetings can wait. Again, reschedule them.
The day before you leave, send a summary email of the focus points your team needs to deliver on while you are gone. Send it around lunchtime that day, giving time that afternoon for your team to ask any questions they have before you go.
Last but not least, if you don’t have a team yet, you need to find someone who can cover the day-to-day basics while you are gone (like a virtual assistant). It will be next to impossible to unplug otherwise.
So ask yourself, is your team ready for your next vacation? It’s never too early to prepare your team to work independently such that when you are ready to go on vacation, they are ready. What are some pieces you can be working on now? Go ahead and be working on those now so you are one step closer to being ready for your next vacation.
