Resolving Business Growth Dilemma

Dear Joan,

My company had wonderful growth last year. We doubled our business, added several managers and staff, and increased our office space. The problem is that we are still falling all over each other. And the growth seems to have created one crisis after another. As owner of the company, I'm spending way too much time fighting fires. There are so many priorities that I hardly know where to begin. Could you give me some suggestions on how to minimize the crises and get everyone rowing in the same direction?

Sincerely, Harry S.

Dear Harry,

Growing pains happen to companies much like they happen to growing children. Companies outgrow their systems and procedures just like kids outgrow their jeans and shoes. And it can cause a serious drain on cash flow as well as the other problems you describe.

It may be a good idea to hire a coach to help you to develop and implement a plan. In the meantime, let me give you a few things to think about that may be helpful.

I suspect that before your growth spurt, the managers and you were wearing several hats at a time, with overlapping responsibilities and roles. You have now added more managers and staff to handle the extra workload, but you probably have not had the time to redefine work flow, processes, and responsibilities in relationship to the new people.

I suggest that you get all your managers together in a room and spend several hours diagramming on a board your current work, communication, and paper flow processes. As you make your flowchart and discuss how work is done and who does what, you will no doubt discover some of the bottlenecks. Paperwork duplication, overlaps, gaps, and areas where communications get garbled will also become apparent. It is important to reevaluate, simplify, and automate as many paper and communication systems as possible.

As the group identifies problem areas, brainstorm about better ways to get the work accomplished. Then based on what the group thinks would work best, ask them to define who should logically be responsible for what. This may mean that some peoples' roles, responsibilities, and job descriptions will shift and change.

As the roles and responsibilities evolve, ask each person to outline his or her new job description. Ask them to begin a rough draft of revisions to workflow documents in their areas of responsibility. I suggest that the managers discuss these potential changes with their work group and solicit their ideas as well. People support what they help to create!

Have the management group get back together in a week or two to share and refine ideas. Determine an implementation schedule so that there will be an orderly transition. Make the changes in logical stages. Don't try to do everything at once. Realize that you will be testing the new processes and procedures and that it is unlikely to be perfect. Mistakes, revisions, and continuous refinement are part of the process of growth.

A business coach could be helpful in this process as a facilitator and resource for additional ideas. It is critical that identifying the problems and the redesign of processes for the company's transformation belongs to the people who are going to have to live with them and make them work.

 

Joan Bolmer, 3307 Lake Ridge Bend, Spring TX, 77380; Office 832.458.0455
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