The Stages of Growth clarifies the optimal number of managers and leaders for a business. This blog post shows what that ideal number looks like across the seven Stages of Growth. This framework serves as the ideal for businesses to follow, with the management and leadership teams growing in proportion to the needs of the organization. In reality, however, many leaders miss these transitions.
The Position Role Sheet is a management tool that organizes the work through Positions, Roles, and Types of Work. It is a fundamental way to accomplish the goal of first organizing the work before organizing the people doing the work. As a building block for departments of all sizes, Position Role Sheets break down the roles and responsibilities of each position within a department.
This natural tendency to focus on the immediate needs of one’s department can work against the success of the enterprise. Due to daily challenges, needs, and opportunities, departments can become self-focused and lose sight of the big picture. The outcomes of this silo mentality are a lack of cooperation and hoarding of information. What works for one department might make things difficult for another. Departments begin to compete for resources without understanding or even caring about the needs of the enterprise.
Dr. W. Edward Deming is recognized as the father of the modern Quality Movement that ignited new ideas and focused energy on process improvement. He contributed to Japan’s economic recovery after World War II, largely through his influence over manufacturing processes.
Dr. Deming was a champion of systems and processes. At one point, he made this poignant statement: “If you cannot define what you are doing as a process, you do not understand what you are doing.”
A Stage 1 leader guides their team with a strong vision, focuses on people’s potential, and takes charge to lead the organization through chaos. This ideal blend results in an organization that has a picture of where it is headed, is comprised of high functioning, engaged team members, and pushes through chaos with decisive decision making.
A Stage 4 business has between 35-57 employees. Known as the Professional Stage, one of the top five challenges businesses of this size face is weak project management. A Stage 4 business must focus on implementing scalable processes and systems in order to keep pace with growth. That’s why it’s common for this challenge to arise at this point.
A Stage 3 business has between 20-34 employees. One of the top five challenges businesses of this size face is the existence of a gap between leadership and staff. A Stage 3 business now has too many people for the leader to directly oversee, which is why the leader needs to focus on delegation to managers. This new organizational layer can create an environment of inadequate communication with the staff.
Climate refers to the prevailing attitudes and standards in a group. Based on what employees observe and experience, climate develops from what people sense is valued or treated as important in their workplace. Whether intentional or not, there is a climate at every level in your organization.
All too often, the climate of a work environment is one that has come about over time without intentional effort. It has been set by the leader, through actions taken and values displayed, both positive and negative.
A Stage 2 business has between 11-19 employees. One of the top five challenges businesses of this size face is hiring quality people. A Stage 2 business is beginning to move away from hiring generalists to hiring more specialized talent. This marks a significant shift in procedures which can be difficult to get right—especially if the company is growing rapidly.
A Stage 1 business has between 1-10 employees. One of the top five challenges businesses of this size face is destabilization stemming from chaos. As a business owner, you don’t want your employees to be overly stressed or unsure how to go about doing their work. Nor do you want the burden of unclear processes slowing everyone down.
Transition zones are periods of change a business goes through as it exits one Stage of Growth and enters the next. Transition Zones happen to every business as they move from one Stage into another.
During this period of change, businesses commonly experience a period of chaos where things feel disconcerting and overwhelming. Transition Zone are like rough waters. These periods can be especially perplexing because the organization is often experiencing positive advancement and growth right up to the point the transition begins.
In our last article, we defined Brand Values and explained the benefits that they bring to a business. Today we’re going to look at Core Values.
Core Values are three to six words or short phrases that paint a picture of how the team is to interact with each other. As a promise to the team, Core Values are the basis upon which members of a company plan, make decisions, and interact with each other.
But why does your business need them?
Brand Values are three to six words or short phrases that paint a picture of what a business sees as the ideal customer experience. They serve as a promise to the market—not only what the company strives to be in theory but considers on a practical level when making day-to-day decisions about priorities and initiatives.
But why does your business need them?
Is it better for your business to be Standard? Custom? Or someplace in-between?
The answer depends in part on your business—the industry and services you provide both play a part in determining what’s best. However, there is a tendency across all industries for businesses owners to have a bias towards the Custom side of the continuum. Their mindset is that their business is unique or special, so it must be Custom.
This article, based on concepts from the book Business Model, explains the concept of the Standard-Custom Continuum. Keep reading to learn what it is and how using it can make your business more scalable.
The Vision and Mission are foundational statements about why an organization exists. When given proper emphasis, they can act as a north star, guiding the company through whatever happens in the future. Although they are often grouped together, a company’s Vision and Mission are distinct statements.
There will always be urgent issues that require your attention. But without a set of focused goals, those issues can easily take over your entire business.
Establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is an effective way to focus your time and energy. When used correctly, KPIs serve to keep the important metrics of your business at the forefront, where you can periodically review and assess them.
Oftentimes, businesses struggle with knowing whether their marketing efforts are working. Are potential customers getting the message? Are there more effective ways to advertise? What will boost sales?
While there is a lot that can be said about crafting a message to have the biggest impact, the focus of this article is not on the message itself, but rather on who the message is for. It’s a crucial first step that many businesses skip. You can have a finely crafted message with gorgeous visuals, but if it’s not reaching your intended audience, you may as well be shouting in the dark. No one will respond.
It can be difficult to draw boundaries between your personal life and your work life—especially if you own a small business. Despite your best intentions, it may feel as though you’re never giving enough effort to one or the other. The elusive work-life balance can feel impossible to attain.
While we don’t have a magic wand that can stretch time (still working on that!), we do have some advice for managing work-life balance based on the experiences of small business owners.
Your cell phone is ringing. It’s also beeping, letting you know that a text message has come through. The afternoon is full of back-to-back meetings. You’re sitting at your desk, wondering how the day could already be half over when it feels like you just got started. Looks like it will be another late night …
Sound familiar? If you’re a small business owner, we’re writing with you in mind. We understand all too well the way a person can get swept up in the day-to-day details of running a business, making it difficult to keep your head above water. We also recognize that burnout is a very real issue for small business owners. Whether it’s after one year or ten, everyone finds their breaking point if they are constantly under the gun.
One of the most frequent challenges we hear from small business owners and leaders relates to time management. Many tell us that that part of the reason they wanted to own their business was to have more control over their schedules, but in reality, the opposite is true. They feel like their business owns them, not the other way around. Despite working long hours and most weekends, they can’t get ahead.
Following are the three most common barriers we see keeping business leaders from effectively managing their time.
For most CEOs, their jobs have been evolving since they first started the company. Many were experts in a trade or a skill and were able to build a successful business on that expertise. As their business grew, however, they found themselves faced with new types of challenges, such as learning how to manage managers, how to delegate effectively, and how to communicate the vision and mission of the organization.
CEO peer groups provide a way for leaders to get outside perspective on their businesses. While they carry certain advantages, there are also some disadvantages. In this article, we consider both the advantages and disadvantages of CEO peer groups, closing with an alternative.
Many small business owners struggle with knowing where to allocate their time and resources. One issue we hear about a lot has to do with sales and marketing—which is more important?
The short answer is that both are important, but what we’ll look at today is the relationship between the two and how the industry your business is in has a lot to do with knowing which one deserves more of your time.
