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Organizations usually expand in spurts, by smashing through a series of ceilings. Reaching the natural limits of your existing resources is a by-product of growth. A company continually needs to adjust its existing state if it hopes to expand through the next ceiling. You and your leadership team need to understand this because you will hit the ceiling on three different levels: as an organization, departmentally, and as individuals.
In all of these instances, growth is your only option. If you’re not growing, be it internally or externally, you’re dying. Most companies strive for external growth, but internal growth also leads to future greatness. In fact, most companies need to start with a focus on internal growth before they can even think about external growth. The paradox is that they will actually grow faster externally in the long run if they are focused internally from the outset.
You can survive hitting the ceiling by choosing a leadership team that possesses five core leadership abilities. Your leaders need to be able to simplify, delegate, predict, systemize, and structure. To the degree that you and your team apply these five abilities, you will grow to the next level. Let’s take a look at them one by one.
1. Simplify
The acronym KISS (“keep it simple, stupid”) is your mantra here. Simplifying your organization is key. This entails streamlining the rules you operate under as well as how they’re communicated. The same goes for your processes, systems, messages, and vision. Most organizations are too complex when they begin. Use models, visuals, acronyms, and checklists to simplify processes and procedures, because as your organization grows, it will get more complex.
Henry David Thoreau got to the core of the issue in the book Walden, but Ralph Waldo Emerson later did him one better:
“Simplify, simplify.” – Henry David Thoreau
“One ‘simplify’ would have sufficed.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dan Sullivan, the creator of The Strategic Coach® Program, makes the point as follows: “No further progress and growth is possible for an organization until a new state of simplicity is created.”
2. Delegate
Your ability to break through the ceiling also depends on your ability to delegate. Be prepared to “delegate and elevate” to your true god-given skill set. You’ll have to delegate some of your responsibilities and elevate yourself to operate at your highest and best use. The responsibilities that you delegate to other people have to be tasks that you have outgrown. These include things such as opening mail, writing proposals, approving invoices, and handling customer complaints. Sometimes we’re afraid to pass off jobs that aren’t much fun for others, but, at a certain point, you’ll have to. The beauty of this transition is that there are people who have the skills and enthusiasm to do these jobs.
Not only will you need to learn how to delegate and elevate, but the people around you will as well. Just as you need to figure out how to build an extension of yourself, your team can also extend the company by building teams under them, thus ensuring the company’s continued growth.
3. Predict
Prediction in business is done on two basic levels: Long-term and Short-term.
Long-term prediction. Publicly held companies predict earnings. When they later announce their actual earnings, either they hit the prediction or they don’t. If they hit it, their stock continues to climb. If they miss, their stock simply drops. In a small to mid-size privately held organization, you don’t have the luxury of missing your prediction. If you do, it may put you out of business.
Long-term predicting is the forecast of everything 90 days and beyond. To do so, your leadership team has to know where the organization is going and how you expect to get there. You do this by starting with the far future and working your way back. What is your 10-year target? What is your three-year picture? Your one-year plan? What do you have to accomplish in the next 90 days in order to be on track?
At first, this task may seem daunting, so let’s take a little pressure off. No one has a crystal ball. No one can know what will happen tomorrow with certainty. Long-term predicting is not really about foretelling what will happen; it’s making a decision about what you will do tomorrow based on what you know today.
Short-term prediction. While the long-term view addresses business needs 90 days and beyond, the short-term focuses on the immediate future. These are the issues that will arise on a daily or weekly basis, and your ability to solve them will affect the long-term greater good of the organization.
As a leader in an organization, you’re probably hit with at least half a dozen problems a day. Most leaders are so buried in the day-to-day grind that they’ll typically workarounds just to get nagging issues out of their way so they can make it to the next week. If this happens long enough, their whole organization will unknowingly follow the same practice and it will ultimately collapse. You’ll need to do a good job of predicting so that you can make those problems go away forever and avoid a similar fate.
4. Systemize
There was probably a time when your business demanded that you fly by the seat of your pants. This involved reacting to every customer request, thinking on your toes, and being creative on the fly. At some point, though, certain actions have revealed themselves as redundant. That’s when you should systemize them.
There are really only a handful of core processes that make any organization function. Systemizing involves clearly identifying what those core processes are and integrating them into a fully functioning machine. You will have a human resource process, a marketing process, a sales process, an operating process, a customer-retention process, an accounting process, and so on. These must all work together in harmony, and the methods you use should be crystal clear to everyone at all levels of the organization.
The first step is to agree as a leadership team on what these processes are and then to give them a name. This is your company’s Way of doing business. Once you all agree on your Way, you will simplify, apply technology to, document, and fine-tune these core processes. In doing so, you will realize tremendous efficiencies, eliminate mistakes, and make it easier for managers to manage and for you to increase your profitability.
By systemizing your organization, you will start to see how all five leadership abilities work together to break through the ceiling. There is a direct correlation between organizational adherence to core processes and your own ability to let go. Handing over a turnkey system to an accountable leader makes it easier for you to delegate and elevate. As long as he or she follows the process and possesses the skill set to do the job, you’ll be confident that the job at hand will be accomplished correctly.
5. Structure
At last, you and your leadership team will need to structure your organization correctly. Your company needs to be organized in a way that reduces complexity and creates accountability. In addition, this structure should also be designed to boost you to the next level. Too many organizations become stuck because they are set in their old ways and unwilling to change to fit their expansion.
Unfortunately, the structures of most small companies are either too loose or non-existent. Many of them have structures governed by ego, personality, and fear. You’ll learn how to use the accountability chart so that you don’t fall into this trap. This will enable you to implement a structure that encourages expansion and clearly defines everyone’s roles and responsibilities.
In summary, once you understand that hitting the ceiling is inevitable, you and your leadership team must employ these five leadership abilities to reach the next level: (1) simplify the organization, (2) delegate and elevate, (3) predict both long-term and short-term, (4) systemize, and (5) structure your company the right way. (Inspired from ‘Traction’ By Gino Wickman).
The Wealth Code: Volume 1 is a personal development and financial education book written by Vinod Singh. It is designed to empower readers by teaching them principles of wealth creation, financial freedom, and personal growth. The book offers practical strategies to achieve financial success, with a vision to uplift and transform the lives of millions by promoting financial literacy and entrepreneurial thinking. Singh’s approach is rooted in inspiring individuals to take control of their financial destinies while cultivating a mindset focused on long-term success and abundance.
