Are you thinking of scaling up your business?
Has the pandemic offered up an opportunity that might allow you to scale up your business? You may well have put your plans on hold in order to navigate through the last eighteen months or so. Now might be a good time to resurrect your plans. Here are some thoughts for your consideration.
The business owner must be absolutely crystal clear about what they want and in what sort of time frame. Let’s think about a five-year plan that is carefully thought through with critical points and measurable gateways that can be assessed and discussed. Make sure that the gateways allow you to test the progress and delivery during those 5 years. Spend some considerable time on this thought process, seek your team collaboration, and be detailed about it but keep it simple and concise. You must be able to explain it.
It would be good to think about some key principles that will drive the change project. Two come to mind – unity of purpose and effective communication. There are many examples of change and scaling up projects that fail because greater consideration is given to the easier functional areas such as IT, office space, office furniture, capital costs and other processes. These tend to be fairly straight forward, but the key people capability is given little if any detailed consideration.
If there tends to be little substantive engagement with the people capability in your business, this is where the two suggested principles above really come into force. Your people need to be engaged early and they need to be convinced entirely of your aspirations, ambitions, and plans. They must get buy in. Those that struggle to understand or to be convinced will act as anchors, obstacles, and delayers to your future plans. There is an absolute requirement for trust, loyalty, and accountability at all times in your team. This must be reinforced and engendered. If this is not present it is a long and uphill battle probably doomed to failure.
Then, of course, what essential characteristics must the business owner acquire and display? A ruthless adherence to managing your time linked to a focus upon what you can achieve, and what you cannot influence. This would be a good start. Business owners will not have all the necessary skills. Identify early what your weaknesses are and ensure that where these exist they are made into strengths through motivating and, if needs be, recruiting new people.
Many business owners are aware that there will be some employees who are at the top of their game and have little future potential. Make a judgement on this and think about your future people plan. A people balance sheet is something worth considering.
We at Tamar HR understand the people capability and its complexities. We are keen to support business owners looking to scale up. We have a great track record and would be keen to engage with you at whatever stage you are of your proposed development.