The Wrong Second-in-Command Can Break Your Elevator Business

I’ve been consulting and advising elevator business owners for almost a decade now, and there’s a consistent pattern that continues to show up in their companies.

They’ve either fallen into the trap of promoting or hiring for the wrong reasons…

Or there wasn’t much of a consideration for a culture/compatibility check or the long-term expectations for that leading role.

When that role isn’t clearly defined and tracked through accountability, structure, and communication, it breaks down pretty quickly.

Basing important decisions like these on gut-instinct and an immediate need to fill a spot can quickly lead to:

• Putting responsibility onto someone who wasn’t ready for it
• Forming a weak leadership team
• Developing resentment and resistance on all sides

You may ruin a perfectly good working relationship while setting company growth back by years.

Wrong Person or Wrong Set Up?

It’s easy to look back and say, “I just picked the wrong person.”

But I’d challenge you to consider:

Did you put someone into a leadership position without giving them the structure required to succeed in it?

If you’re still questioning, it’s the latter.

That person likely didn’t have a clear expectation of what they owned, they had no numbers tied to their performance/accountability, and there was no consistent rhythm for communication.

That’s a recipe for high stakes and pressure that ultimately leads to decline in performance.

Take it from me:

Early on, I just needed bodies because we were growing so quickly at Madden Elevator. And that gave way to blind spots in our hiring process.

You might have a tech out there right now that’s doing a great job showing up and getting the job done.

So you consider bringing them on as a supervisor or ops manager, but you have no process to onboard them into that role. You might not have the money needed to really train them and you don’t really have the capacity or time to give them the guidance they need to be successful.

So what happens?

They come in and do an okay job of filling that void. They might even take a little pressure off, but they can’t be exceptional because they weren’t onboarded properly, they have no idea what success looks like in metrics, and there wasn’t a clear communication protocol that was established for them.

What Your Second-in-Command Needs to Succeed

When you’re bringing somebody in or moving them towards your number two in the business, it is essential to have these 3 things:

• A clear understanding of their role and what’s expected
• How their performance is going to be measured
• How you plan to communicate on a weekly basis

When you have those key pieces in place in your elevator business, you can build and solidify the dream team.

When your second-in-command can answer these questions:

1. What does success look like?
2. What are the success numbers/metrics tied to your role?

They have the bumpers or the overarching picture of their role needed to work successfully and efficiently.

And then communicating consistently about those pieces on a weekly basis is where those productive conversations can come up concerning performance, long-term growth, and whether or not this is really the position for them.

If You Made It This Far

We covered a lot here, but this is something you should see in action.

The full Build Your Second-in-Command Workshop replay is available, where I walk through the exact systems, examples, and conversations that make this work inside an elevator business.

You can watch the full workshop and access the bonus tools here:

Check it out here: https://www.elevatorstrategichub.com/build-your-second-in-command-workshop