As your business grows, it morphs and changes. It changes in how you need to manage it. It changes in how it is structured. It changes in its needs.
I know you know this because you will have had to upgrade your business systems from time to time. As the business grew, you needed bigger, better, more structured systems for managing data, for paying people, for production, and for security, for example.
But how many business owners actually consider that you also need enhanced structures for managing people? That seems something that many founder / owners think is just something that you can do instinctively and by ‘feel’. You use your ‘parental’ skills, or your ‘friendship’ skills, or your – generally great – social skills to manage the people you started the business with.
The danger signs
But there comes a point in time where this runs out of road. And when it does, you might find yourself saying things like:
· “It’s so difficult to motivate people”
· “Why doesn’t anybody get on with things by themselves?”
· “Why does everything have to end up on my desk?”
· “Why doesn’t anybody seem to take any initiative around here?”
…and even, if you get really frustrated, “It’s like managing a bunch of kids”!
These are the danger signs that tell you you need an enhanced operating process for managing people. But not a complicated one, not one you might have experienced in big companies you may have worked in before. You don’t need a huge HR department or a massive structure of competencies and frameworks for managing people.
People need three things:
· To know what they’re there to deliver (not ‘do’)
· To know how it will be measured
· To take full accountability for it
What to do about it
Here’s the essence of what needs to happen when you start to have these problems at the early scaling up stage of your business:
- Get the team together, with you, in one room, using a trained facilitator from outside your team.
- Role by role, starting with the whole team’s role, then the team leader, define the key 3-5 deliverables (accountabilities) of every role in the room, in simple terms that you could communicate to an intelligent 12-year-old.
- Assign the key quantitative and qualitative measures to each accountability you come up with.
- Make sure everyone contributes to every role. This is how you get a tight-knit team, each of whom knows precisely what they and everybody else in the team are accountable for – because they’ve all participated in creating it.
This leaves people, not with a carefully honed list of responsibilities and tasks on paper or on the HR system, but one which they can hold in their heads and use as a practical everyday tool to guide their prioritisation, productivity and management of performance.
You’ll each experience the shift in clarity and accountability that happens when you revisit the design of your own role. And you’ll experience the essential value of working with others, first to broaden your perspective, and then to tighten and refine your definitions of the precise deliverables of your role – as it currently needs to be.
You will be amazed at how having a simple operating infrastructure for managing people will suddenly make your business easier to run again. Suddenly, you’re not running everybody or checking that they’re doing their jobs.
You’re actually working with a community of partners who share accountability for the business with you.
Let me know if you’d like to have a further chat about this!
As your business grows, it morphs and changes. It changes in how you need to manage it. It changes in how it is structured. It changes in its needs.
I know you know this because you will have had to upgrade your business systems from time to time. As the business grew, you needed bigger, better, more structured systems for managing data, for paying people, for production, and for security, for example.
But how many business owners actually consider that you also need enhanced structures for managing people? That seems something that many founder / owners think is just something that you can do instinctively and by ‘feel’. You use your ‘parental’ skills, or your ‘friendship’ skills, or your – generally great – social skills to manage the people you started the business with.
The danger signs
But there comes a point in time where this runs out of road. And when it does, you might find yourself saying things like:
· “It’s so difficult to motivate people”
· “Why doesn’t anybody get on with things by themselves?”
· “Why does everything have to end up on my desk?”
· “Why doesn’t anybody seem to take any initiative around here?”
…and even, if you get really frustrated, “It’s like managing a bunch of kids”!
These are the danger signs that tell you you need an enhanced operating process for managing people. But not a complicated one, not one you might have experienced in big companies you may have worked in before. You don’t need a huge HR department or a massive structure of competencies and frameworks for managing people.
People need three things:
· To know what they’re there to deliver (not ‘do’)
· To know how it will be measured
· To take full accountability for it
What to do about it
Here’s the essence of what needs to happen when you start to have these problems at the early scaling up stage of your business:
- Get the team together, with you, in one room, using a trained facilitator from outside your team.
- Role by role, starting with the whole team’s role, then the team leader, define the key 3-5 deliverables (accountabilities) of every role in the room, in simple terms that you could communicate to an intelligent 12-year-old.
- Assign the key quantitative and qualitative measures to each accountability you come up with.
- Make sure everyone contributes to every role. This is how you get a tight-knit team, each of whom knows precisely what they and everybody else in the team are accountable for – because they’ve all participated in creating it.
This leaves people, not with a carefully honed list of responsibilities and tasks on paper or on the HR system, but one which they can hold in their heads and use as a practical everyday tool to guide their prioritisation, productivity and management of performance.
You’ll each experience the shift in clarity and accountability that happens when you revisit the design of your own role. And you’ll experience the essential value of working with others, first to broaden your perspective, and then to tighten and refine your definitions of the precise deliverables of your role – as it currently needs to be.
You will be amazed at how having a simple operating infrastructure for managing people will suddenly make your business easier to run again. Suddenly, you’re not running everybody or checking that they’re doing their jobs.
You’re actually working with a community of partners who share accountability for the business with you.
Let me know if you’d like to have a further chat about this!