This question and answer series of articles provides scenarios for business owners to find answers to business frustrations.
As a business grows, the need for organisation becomes imperative. Organisational thinking and structure are essential for getting the most from your business and yourself, as well as for being able to achieve balance between your business and your life. Your starting point is your company’s organisational chart. Creating one solves a lot of problems and answers many questions as to how you can co-ordinate the work of the business so that it runs efficiently and produces the results you need.
Some hints about an organisation chart: build it around responsibilities rather than ‘jobs’; Everyone only has one manager; don’t tailor positions around personalities, tailor them to the functions the business needs. Finally, organisational strategy and structure must evolve in step with the business or slightly ahead of it. Make it forward looking. (A useful practical hint is that there is an easy organisation chart tool in Word and Powerpoint.)
Q: I have drafted an organisational chart according to your suggestions in an earlier article and my name is in practically every box. I now know why I’m constantly exhausted! What do I do next to save my sanity?
Look for the position you would most like to work yourself out of as soon as decently possible. More often than not it involves routine work. List the duties, activities and responsibilities that you do when you are in that box. Prioritise them; there will almost certainly be a top three or five things that get done there, that if you had a set of written instructions for them, you would be able to hand them to someone else. Develop the instructions with clear outcomes (call them
systems if you like) and find someone to follow the instructions. The rule is: throw systems at a position before you throw people into it. If you can have someone else manage those responsibilities without the need for you to stand over their shoulder and teach them, you will have freed up a significant chunk of your time – leaving you free to stress about something else! Seriously, that is the way you will gradually work yourself out of the boxes that eat away at your time, allowing you to spend more time focusing on the areas where you are more valuable to the business.
Watch for Part Twenty-Five of the Q & A series…coming soon!
Until next time…
P.S. Learn more about working ON your business–talk to the coach! Click here to connect with me!