If there is one gift you can give the members of your team, it is clarity. Clarity for the overall vision for the practice. Clarity for how they fit into that vision. Clarity for your expectations. Clarity for how their individual success is measured.

It's amazing how whenever an issue with a team member arises it can often be traced to a lack of clarity in one of these areas. Anytime you're dealing with a number of individuals who have to work together to achieve a complex goal, there is going to be the potential for things to slip through the cracks. It's what I call the "black holes" of the business.

These are those mysterious places where things just disappear and nobody seems to be responsible – they are the black holes of accountability where possibilities go to die.

We should always remember that good team alignment is always a function of good team leadership, and that starts with providing a guiding sense of clarity. People like to know where they stand. They like to feel a part of something bigger than themselves, but they also want to know exactly what their part in the bigger picture is. They want to know exactly how their role is defined. They want to be able to measure their results against a fair and consistent standard. Clarity provides direction and motivation.

This is why I have devoted several comprehensive lessons on Spear Online exploring in-depth the critical "value roles" that make up a high-functioning practice. The beauty of it lies in its simplicity. Each role boils down to only a few key areas of accountability. Each set of responsibilities is easy to understand and simple to implement. But when taken together, they have the power to vanquish those dangerous black holes once and for all.


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