Understanding Your Business Center of Gravity

From Leader-Centric to Team-Driven

What’s at your business’ core? 

What’s the critical component that everything in your company revolves around? 

It differs from business to business but exists as your center of gravity. 

Just like with people, your center of gravity influences how you move. It restricts what you can do. It dictates how you’ll perform.

Knowing where your business center of gravity lies gives you insights into what steps to take to impact the company’s potential, productivity, and profits. 

It’s pretty important that you get this figured out. So, here’s an article to help. 

Finding Your Business Center of Gravity

Your business center of gravity is the focal point of all happenings in the business. 

There are two centers your business can resolve around: the leader and the team. 

I can very quickly point out which is true of your business. 

If it’s the leader, it’s noticeable because the leader is often frustrated, not seeing the results they want, and gets angry when I ask questions that highlight the issue. 

If it’s the team, things might not be perfect, but they’re clearly addressing issues and working collaboratively to improve the company.

Here’s a chance to self-assess: 

If you’re someone who felt angry reading the table, you might be the problem. 

You’re likely bothered because the center of gravity is you, and you need to come to terms with your company’s situation being because of how you’re leading things. 

If you’re someone who sees opportunity in this list, hell yeah. You’re going to do great things.

And if you’re already crushing it on the team side, you should know I’m proud of you.

How to Shift Your Center of Gravity

Most companies have a bit of work to do if they want to completely shift the center of gravity. 

Here are some of the ways you can shift the center of gravity to your team. 

1. Distribute Decision-Making Authority 

You don’t need to be at the center of every decision. Give your team a chance to prove themselves by giving them gradual authority to make larger decisions. 

Start small. If a decision could cost the company more than $500, have them check in with you. After they’ve shown they can handle decisions at that level, bump the number up. 

That $500 can turn to $5,000, and then to $50,000. 

And if your stomach just churned at the thought of your team making a $50,000 decision, think of the upside to that. I’m not telling you to do that today. Work your way there. 

Imagine the type of business you’d have if your team could handle decisions at that level. 

Imagine the freedom it would give you to focus on strategic opportunities. 

2. Increase Transparency

Information should never be siloed. Whether with the leader or between departments. 

The more information that can be accessed by the team, the more trust is built, and the faster decisions can be made. 

Often, the reason your team makes poor decisions (and maybe why you do too) is because you don’t have the full picture. 

If you’re holding back information because you want to maintain control of it, it’s only hurting the company. Share the information and watch as your team surprises you with awesome decisions. 

3. Build a Culture of Ownership

When your team has true ownership over the tasks and projects in front of them, you cease to become the bottleneck. 

Ownership requires someone being accountable to the desired outcome (one person per project, otherwise you’ll get the “I though you were doing it” argument). 

It also requires giving your team the autonomy to do what they need. You can coach, but the goal is to let the team figure it out so you don’t have to. 

You have ownership over the team as a whole. You’re responsible for what the team does or fails to do. Spend your time focused on the bigger picture and give your team the flexibility to run their projects the way they need to. 

You’ll be surprised by their innovation and results. 

4. Cross-Functional Collaboration

Let teams talk. Directly. With each other. Without you. 

Even if you have a small team, let developers talk directly to marketers, instead of having the middleman of you as a glorified project manager. Let sales go to marketing. Let the product team go to sales. 

When teams talk directly, different information is shared. A developer doesn’t see the world the same way as a sales rep. This is good. They do different jobs. But having them talk is an opportunity for them to understand other perspectives within the company. 

When the business’ center of gravity lies with the leader, these conversations rarely happen, and it holds everyone back. You become a filter that all communication passes through, causing the information’s meaning to morph. It also stops those magical ideas that only come from two different perspectives coming together. 

5. Clarify Roles

It’s an annoying fact that A LOT of companies have poorly defined roles. 

And even if the role is relatively clear, there’s often a lack of clarity around the results expected from the position. Ideally, a team member can look back over a rating period and say, “I was successful” or “I need to do better” purely based on their job description. 

Aim for the 3 D’s: Description, Duties, and Deliverables. 

Description: The basics of the role. Often what you’ve included in the job posting. Who do they report to? What types of projects can they expect? 

Duties: Personalized list of responsibilities broken down by time frame (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly). Note: this isn’t to micromanage, it’s to be clear on what needs to happen for the team to be successful because others count on these duties being fulfilled.

Deliverables: The results you expect from the position. Targets. Reach goals. 

The clearer the role, the easier it is for your team to operate without you hovering over them. 

6. Accept Responsibility, Pass Praise

This is often one of the hardest things for leaders at the center of gravity to execute. 

Why? Because it sucks to pass praise. That is, until you reframe it for yourself. 

Your responsibility is the team. When the team wins, it’s because you helped them get there. It doesn’t need to be said. It just is. 

Of course, sometimes teams are successful in spite of their leader, but that’s a different story. 

So, when things go wrong, figure out how you could have done better. Collaborate with the team. 

When things go well, let the team know you’re proud of them. That you couldn’t do it without them. Because that’s often the case. 

Track Your Center of Gravity

Finding your center of gravity is important if you want to grow your business sustainably, without breaking yourself in the process. 

Pick a couple of items from the list and put them in play. Apply the low-hanging fruit first, then move onto harder ones. They’ll feel easier if you can gain momentum with the team. 

Best of luck.