It’s easy for a business owner to get so caught up in the big picture of growing a business that they forget to tune in to all of the dozens and hundreds of smaller factors that go into creating a successful organization. If this sounds familiar, it may be time to go back to the basics.
How to Get In Tune With Your Business
Entrepreneurs always want to talk about scaling up. Many are borderline obsessed with growth. But the reality is that growth for the sake of growth is dangerous. If you grow without a plan for adapting your management tactics, you’ll actually hurt your business in the long run.
The problem that young companies experience after an initial growth spurt is that the founders/managers get so sucked into the pursuit of growth that they forget to stay in tune with the business and its needs. If this sounds familiar, it’s time to reevaluate your actions and consider doing the following:
- Establish Rapport With Your Employees
Get to know your employees on a personal basis – not just people you write a check to every other week. You should be comfortable having one on one relationships with as many people as you can inside your company. In doing so, you establish rapport.
When employees feel like they can trust you – and truly believe that you care for them as individuals and professionals – they’re much more likely to speak openly and honestly with you. They’ll tell you what’s going on and provide genuine insights into the health of the company. Without this rapport, your employees will just tell you what they think you want to hear.
- Develop Feedback Loops
You need to set up some feedback loops to give your employees the chance to offer up insights without someone having to coax the information out of them. Setting up anonymous systems is especially helpful, as they have a way of encouraging honesty.
Be forewarned, though. If you’re going to open up communications and ask for insights, you must be willing to listen and apply what you learn. Otherwise, employees will lose confidence in the feedback system and be reluctant to open up in the future.
- Build a Dashboard
There are subjective insights – like the ones you gather when speaking with your employees – and objective insights. You need the right combination of the two in order to be fully aware of what’s happening inside your organization.
To handle the objective side of things, it’s recommended that you build a dashboard that organizes your data and spits out key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be used to gauge how you’re doing in specific areas of sales, marketing, operations, etc. You can use a dashboard creator to simplify this process.
- Flatten Your Structure
Tall, complex business hierarchies make it nearly impossible for the individuals at the top of the organization to be fully aware of what’s going on at the bottom rungs. There are simply too many layers in between to yield clear insights. (Think of it like playing the telephone game where people whisper a message down a line and the interpretation is totally different when it reaches the end.)
The best thing you can do is flatten your organization and set things up in such a way that everyone can communicate directly to the top.
- Work On Your Business (Not In It)
“Most entrepreneurs are merely technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure,” author Michael Gerber explains. “Most entrepreneurs fail because you are working in your business rather than on your business.”
Entrepreneurs that work in their businesses get too bogged down in whatever task it is they’re doing and don’t have the time, energy, or focus to study the bigger picture. Don’t make this mistake. Hire the right people and learn to delegate in order that you can work on the business.
Maintain the Right Focus
There’s nothing wrong with growth – every successful business experiences surges where they scale up – but it can’t compromise your ability to manage your company. If you’re honest with yourself and feel as if you’re out of touch with what’s happening on the ground floor of your organization, it’s time to revisit your approach and get back to a position of insight and leadership. Thankfully, with the right tweaks and strategies, it’s possible to grow your business and maintain an appropriate level of control.
