Are you the CEO or manager of a firm with between 11 to 19 employees or 20 to 34 employees? If you are the former, get ready for big changes. If you are the latter, you no doubt are struggling with those big changes. In either case, you’ll find the following information helpful in
Understanding what is going on,
Helping you focus on the right things at the right time,
Predicting what is coming next, and
Helping you adapt your leadership skills to match your company growth.
Stage 2 Ramp-Up
If you have between 11 to 19 employees, you are a Stage 2 company labeled Ramp-Up. You have survived the Start-Up stage. Now it’s about growth. To support the larger staff you need to focus on growing sales and profit. Reaching and maintaining strong cash flow is also critical at this stage. While Start-up was about hiring people who fit (those who bought into your vision for the company), now you need to hire quality people (whose with specific skills).
As CEO at this stage you still need to assert your influence by helping people know where the company is going and how each person fits into the bigger picture. It is still about your vision and your special knowledge of the products or services your firm delivers. Your company focus needs to be on selling every day. You need to identify and develop 3 employee leaders on which to build the company. You must also establish and then monitor each week ‘key indicators.’ Your communication directives now need to be in writing. Likewise, you need to drive your team to hit company goals.
What’s coming next is Stage 3: Delegation. You need to get prepared for a Wind Tunnel. The Wind Tunnel is about letting go of methodologies that no longer work for your larger, more complex company. It’s about letting go of the old means and acquire new methodologies that will work. This next stage is about a BIG shift in the focus from you (CEO-Centric) to the company as an organization (Enterprise-Centric). You will need to become a manager, rather than a product or service specialist. Another change will be shifting your focus from profit to your people. People are you most valuable asset and they are the foundation for continued growth.
In Start-Up, your leadership style was Visionary. It was about driving the emotional climate of the organization and providing direction. In Ramp-Up your leadership style needed to shift to Coaching. Your coaching style will help communicate a belief in people’s potential and an expectation that they will do their best. You must get good at delegating and giving employees goals that stretch them rather than just tasks to be carried out.
Stage 3 Delegation
If you have between 20 to 34 employees, you are a Stage 3 company and this stage of growth is called Delegation. The company has grown beyond your span of control. You making all of the decisions and your juggling act must stop. Control must be delegated to the supervisory staff you identified in Stage 2. You must provide them with decision making training and authority. At this stage there is a need to get staff buy in. With the growth in the number of employees and delegation, a leadership gap between you and the staff can become an issue.
Rather than being dominate as you were in Stage 1 & 2, at Stage 3 you must become facilitative. Facilitative can be described as “Let’s head in this direction, how can I help you take us there?” You need to delegate responsibilities to capable managers and meet with them regularly (at least weekly). Your financial reporting (historic figures) must improve and now include projections (estimates about the future). You need to establish an employee accountability mindset throughout the organization. Since procedures that worked when you were a smaller company will not work for this larger company, you need to review and replace them with procedures that will work for the larger company you’ve become. A company of 25 is very different from a company of 5 or 15. People add complexity.
What’s coming next, Stage 4: Professional. You need to get prepared for a Flood Zone. The Flood Zone is about getting everyone prepared to bear up to the increased quantity of activity. At this stage you need to hire professionals with the knowledge and experience to carry out the work of this larger company with 35 to 57 employees. These professionals will be creating the strong high-performance departments that are both confident and capable. You will need to invest in new systems. You will also need to establish the company’s core Master Processes. Likewise, you will need to become even more of a manager with a strict company project management template. At this stage, you need to shift your focus from people to process.
In Ramp-Up your leadership style was Coaching. In Stage 3: Delegation, the leadership style remains focused on Coaching. And while at this stage, the Coaching style is still your priority, the secondary leadership style is Affiliative. This style tends to value people and their feelings. It creates an excellent working environment by creating great loyalty and connections among staff members.
If you would like to learn more about the 7 Stages of Growth and how it can help you understanding what is going on, helping you focus on the right things at the right time, predicting what is coming next, and helping you adapt your leadership skills to match your company growth – contact me today. Call 763-691-8585 or email me at Tom@trwconsulting16.com