Leaders who recognize they are ready to engage in growth and take next steps to expand their businesses, cannot expect such a change will be successful without first taking time to examine what lies before them.
Consider one of my clients and their preparation for expansion:
The CEO and the President of a company that generates $25 million in annual revenue, recently decided to embark on a five-year strategic growth period to realize $100 million in annual revenue.
They knew their goal was ambitious, they also knew achieving it was at the core of their heartfelt desires.
Conversations between the two leaders, who have been best friends since childhood, determined that company growth would be fueled in two parallel paths:
During the strategic planning process, one theme that consistently surfaced for them was, “We don’t want to change our cultural make-up.”
Some of the questions they contemplated during the process included:
Consideration: Determine and declare our Top 3-5 values and priorities in work and in life and ensure that we hire people who share these values.
Considerations: Include them in the entire planning process. Be open and honest in communications regarding expectations of what will stay the same and what will change.
Consideration: Relationships can be maintained, and there needs to be communication, sharing, and mutual agreement around how. Determine what is most important currently and ensure people do not sacrifice or compromise on these mutual terms of relatedness.
Consideration: Growth is likely to impede access and on some level, it should. As the company grows, the demands on its leaders from internal and external stakeholders will change and increase, meaning there will be less percentage of their time to go around. It’s part of the evolution of an organization.
Consideration: Ensure our hiring process is thorough and complete. Consider doubling the usual time spent with each prospective new ‘family member’ so that we get to know him or her before we hire. Ensure our on-boarding process and orientation lasts for 6 to 9 months as we welcome/integrate new hires.
Consideration: Engage current “family” members in all aspects of the hiring and integration process so they get to know each candidate and have a stake in whom is hired and how he or she is on-boarded.
Alexander Graham Bell once said, “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” Great leaders: take time to examine where you are and where you want to be, then chart your course for success.
The choice is yours!