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.”
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.
In Stage 3, the ideal Builder-Protector Ratio is 1:1, which means there are equal levels of confidence and caution within the organization. This high level of caution helps stabilize the organization as it goes through the important transformation of being owner centric to becoming enterprise centric. The shift from being owner centric to enterprise centric is uniquely challenging. To manage the stress, the pace of change must be deliberately slowed. A reduced pace will create the stability needed to successfully survive the transition.
An Organization Chart, or Org Chart, is a basic tool used by many businesses to communicate where individuals fit within an organization. In Organizational ReWilding, the variation of this concept is called a Functional Org Chart. The key difference is that the Functional Org Chart focuses on positions, not people; no names appear on the chart.
In Stage 2, the ideal Builder-Protector Ratio is 3:1, which means there is three times the amount of confidence as there is caution in the organization. The other way to understand the 3:1 Builder-Protector Ratio is that 75% of the team are Builders, while 25% are Protectors. An organization with a 3:1 Builder-Protector Ratio exhibits a very high level of confidence.
As companies grow and organize into departments, it’s common for them to fall into a siloed mentality where they only see the needs in front of them and do not consider the needs of the company as a whole. This leads to challenges with planning and knowing how best to allocate resources. The Interdepartmental Planning Process helps leaders overcome those challenges by providing a means to weigh the needs of their departments against the other needs of the company. In this way, leaders from various departments can come to a consensus about what needs to be prioritized for the benefit of the organization.
In Stage 1, the ideal Builder-Protector Ratio is 4:1, which means there is four times the amount of confidence as there is caution in the organization. The other way to understand the 4:1 Builder-Protector Ratio is that 80% of the team are Builders, while 20% are Protectors. An organization with a 4:1 Builder-Protector Ratio exhibits a very high level of confidence.
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.
We’ve recently posted about the significance of process and the five steps of process development. Creating and implementing a strong process is only half the battle, though. What happens when you can’t get buy-in from the people who are responsible for using the process?
Consider for a moment how many times an organization has implemented a new process only to have it ignored or performed inconsistently, rendering it useless. The success of a process depends on the people involved having both the Will and the Means to complete it.
Known as the Visionary Stage, one of the top five challenges Stage 7 businesses struggle with is a marketplace that is rapidly changing. With between 161-350 employees, the business has grown to a point where it is no longer quick and nimble like it was when it was smaller. To remain competitive, the organization must be able to methodically identify and pursue market opportunities.
A Stage 3 leader mentors the team, fosters a collaborative environment of trust and respect, and upholds high standards of success. This blend of leadership styles mixes strong people-focused styles (Coaching and Democratic) with enough Pacesetting to keep the rapidly growing team moving forward in the right direction.
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 5 business has between 58-95 employees. Known as the Integration Stage, one of the top five challenges businesses of this size face is inadequate sales. A big reason why increased sales are so important at this Stage is the need to cover growing organizational expenses. The company can no longer expect to keep growing through word-of-mouth and must establish Business Development strategies and structures that are repeatable and can scale with the organization.
