It’s great when your company can be reduced to little boxes. It is not so great when you keep putting yourself in all of them because you are afraid that something will go wrong. 80 employees and only you making key decisions is not a business, it is an anchor dragging you slowly to the bottom of the ocean.
Organization is more than about boxes, it is about responsibilities and accountability. If you are trying to do everything in your not-so-small business, then your business is suffering. You cannot be held accountable: You will take shortcuts, You will give conflicting instructions, You will overlook something important. You need to get organized.
Building an effective organization takes time. That said, time is the one thing we don’t have right now (see planning for the reason why) so lets do some basics. Let’s establish some responsibilities for three positions:
- CFO – Responsible for the money
- COO – Responsible for the quality
- CMO – Responsible for the selling
Three professionals in charge of three areas. All responsible to you as the CEO. You create the team and then work with them to identify how best to make money.
It is important that you fill each of these positions with a different person, preferably someone with a slightly outsized ego. The four of you are going to make your money-making machine hum! Each of you has a particular task and yours, the CEO’s task, is the hardest one of all. You have to encourage them to reach for the stars in their respective area and then work together as a team.
Think it is easy? Think again. Your CFO is responsible for making the money work for you. If it is me, I don’t want money spent on fuzzy marketing or a new piece of equipment – unless someone has done an ROI study on the spending. Your COO wants to find ways to get products out the door without them coming back defective – that means finding new tools or new employees – which butts up against the CFO’s goal. Get the point?
Each individually cannot help you succeed but together, as a team, WOW!
You can’t do all three positions, not at this level. Back when it was just you and your truck, sure, but now, with 80 mouths to feed and care for, you need effective advice and management to ensure your business is working as you originally dreamed it could.
Get organized. Identify who needs to make what decision and then you coordinate with them to make sure they are meeting your vision and strategy.
Accounting Clarity 