Rewire for Growth
A common question for executives is “What are your plans for the business?” Translate this: “Are you growing?”
Especially for owners of small businesses, growth can either be a strategic requirement – they want a bigger company and greater wealth, or a practical necessity – they want to protect the business against the inevitable problems that arise.
Growth isn’t easy, as the reality of restricted cash flow often limits the ability of small businesses to grow – it takes capital to hire new people, launch new products, move into new markets…
Because of this reality, OutsiderMD spends a lot of its time talking to business owners and executives about the (often basic) things that might be preventing growth. Spend a few minutes considering our Top 3:
Being in the way…
Designing a scalable business machine others can run…
Making the business better at getting things done…
1. Being in the way…
Businesses often experience bottlenecks, both in critical work – key decisions, important presentations and delicate negotiations – as well as in the normal daily operations of the business.
These bottlenecks are often you, the business owner or executive. You’re still too important, and can’t leave for extended periods without things falling over.
If this were easy to solve, you would have done it already. It isn’t. It requires a rewiring of your business to provide a timely (at a speed your business can handle) transition from “you” to “not so much of you”.
Part of the rewiring may involve creating or doing more with a leadership team to decentralise parts of the business, formalising a modified decision-making authority.
Can you teach someone else to do everything you do? Not really, but you can build your business to replicate a great deal of what you do. This will allow it to more easily grow and scale.
Think of it as rewiring while the lights are still on.
2. Designing a scalable business machine for others to run…
It’s very common in small businesses to be overly dependent on specific key people – and it’s likely you’re at the front of this line.
But it’s not just you. If Sarah is handling that important project, it will happen, on time and on budget – if she goes on maternity leave, the project falls apart.
If Simon is working with that customer, the customer is ecstatic, and now will only deal with him – if he leaves to take a higher paying job elsewhere, the customer may very well go elsewhere.
In these situations, it’s common that not enough thinking has gone into designing the business to be a self-perpetuating machine that guarantees quality in every project, with every customer – a machine that will run without any one specific person’s involvement.
It’s really about the genetics of your business. If you want to scale your business, from a small beautiful thing that really nails it (if only at times) to a constellation of small beautiful things, combined to be something worth far more: easier to manage, and self-improving as it moves forward, some rewiring is needed.
3. Making the business better at getting things done…
This may sound silly, as every business does lots of things every day.
But think about your experience in your day-to-day operations: is there a bit of sloppiness and inefficiency in the way some things get done?
Do people always do what they say they’re going to do? Are people clear about exactly when something will be done? How do employees communicate if they are late on their commitments? Do they know the impact of being late, or not doing the-thing-you-thought-they-were-going-to-do? How often do people need to be bailed out?
It’s worth considering the level of inefficiency and unnecessary cost this injects into a business, and how much easier the business would be to run if the answers to these questions were the right ones.
Several treatments may prove helpful: giving those in charge some better skills always helps, but by itself, it generally doesn’t solve the problem.
The most important need is to build a sustainable work culture that has accountability, productivity, and fairness at its centre, where quality comes from the ground up, where people know how to seek clarity, know how to accomplish a task well, and know how their piece fits into the puzzle... In short, how to get it right, more often.
This kind of work culture is necessary for a business to grow and scale.
That's a lot to think about. If you feel that growth is something you’d like to explore, take a minute to text or call us on +61427788777 or email (mickey.clark@outsidermd.com). You can relax and expect to get some quick help, as we don't have a product or a methodology to sell you.
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When I seek out an advisor, coach and mentor, I don’t want someone who has just studied executive coaching and tells you what they have been taught you should do.
I want someone who has built a business from scratch, through hard work, taking risks, failures and success and ultimately triumph, where they have personally led a business to heights they and their competitors never thought possible.
I found that person and a great advisor and coach in Mickey, from Outsider MD, who used his extensive business experience in growing one of the most successful online learning businesses in Australia.”