Do you need liberating as an owner? If today, you have a business where the people, processes, structure, and systems can easily keep pace and, in fact, accelerate your growth, they you are likely already liberated and functioning well as an owner. If so, press the pedal down on GROWTH (see last week’s post – Going to War on Revenue).

But what if you are an owner that feels more like one or more of these statements:

  • My company is hitting a wall, where no matter how hard I work, I can’t seem to personally manage past that wall.
  • My business is stuck in a repeating pattern of ups and downs, and everyone seems strained and even confused about priorities.
  • I employ people good enough to get the work done (barely, if I jump in to help), but I don’t believe I have key people I can trust to take us to a new level.
  • Too often it feels like I am just working hard at a job vs. owning a company – and I want to enjoy ownership more.

If you do indeed, harbor any of those feelings, you are very much not alone and you are very much experiencing a normal pains of the business life cycle. Every business must make this transition from a workforce closely managed by the founder/owner, to a self-managing business led by a founder, operating with independent people, structures, processes and systems that support and accelerate a higher rate of growth. The higher rate of growth is simply not possible when the business is heavily reliant on one person (or co-founders) that exercise complete control as a substitute for leadership. This is the move from the Adolescence stage to the PRIME stage your business life cycle, and this is THE most critical stage of business growth through the business life cycle as you unlock the maximum value of your business for you as an owner.

So, if your business is needing this type of transformation – if you are ready to transform your leadership purpose, focus, and activities to unlock this potential, then you are ready to Lead-to-SCALE.

Transform Your Business

What process can you follow to transform your business – to scale your business beyond you. Below is a roadmap I would suggest as a guide along with a brief overview of the steps.

Current Process Mapping

You start by looking at what is and is not working. To be clear, you include all of those involved in the processes and reinforce a safe, open dialog with your teams. I can guarantee you that while you might “know everything in your head” that you think needs to be done, your team will contribute greatly to the process.

Identify the current processes in place in finance, sales (including any customer-facing processes like customer service), and operations. When I say map, I mean draw them (draw a map like a flowchart) on a piece of paper identifying the people, structures, systems, and workflows involved for each one. Identify what is broken and why it is broken. Ask those involved what success would look like. Ask yourself what success would look like for you NOT to be involved and for you to EMPOWER others to get that process done each time without you (at least 90%+ of the time).

Future Process Mapping

Now, map out the future processes that will deliver the success you defined. Determine if you have the right people to execute or whether new hires are required to gain leadership or more skills. Ensure that none of the processes directly include you at the center of the process (if you stay involved with any – stay involved with SALES because every owner is the real CRO – Chief Revenue Officer). Identify changes in structure (reporting) or gaps in systems that must be filled. Then prioritize each of these future processes in terms of investments in bringing them to life. You can’t do them all at once, but you can prioritize them and do one at at time (use some combination of investment, benefit, ease of completion, and available people-resources today to determine where to start).

Team Execution

As your teams start executing to transform each process, ensure the teams set measurable goals (e.g., A/R ratio to Revenue, reducing average collection days, increasing number of in-person sales appointments) and establish KPIs that will be reported on specific activities that will drive towards those goals. It is important for you as the owner/founder to stay focused on the outcomes you expect (the “what”) and give some room to these teams to create the “how.” Resist your urges to tell them how to do it. You have already mapped the old and new processes, so step back, even as it might take more time, to let your teams complete and refine these processes. Just get updates (see continuous improvement below) and keep looking at whether you are getting to the outcomes you all agreed would be “success.”

Continuous Improvement

The art of continuous improvement is about building a true “learning” organization. That doesn’t refer to training or classes or any sort. It is about whether you are inspiring people through your leadership to engage in a culture and business operating system that rewards improvement and supports failure every day (if you would like review some of my post related to the learning organization, start with Miracle on Ice! – and the Learning Organization). Your ultimate goal for continuous improvement is very straightforward – communicate a clear business operating system – structure, priorities, expectations of engagement and accountability, scheduled outcome reviews, positive feedback and private mentoring to improve where appropriate, and empowerment of the team to act and create value for you.

The power to liberate yourself is all yours!

As Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn said, “Hire the right people. Set them up to be successful (from vision to values – your operating system). Get out of their way.” Is this an easy thing to do. Absolutely not. That’s why you need to follow a disciplined process – step by step – to create the vision to values operating system that sets up your business for success. But, the reward for paying this price is far great from the reward of continuing with 80-100 hours a week managing every detail – you will finally be and work like an owner.

If you want to have a conversation about how I can help you Lead-to-SCALE, let’s talk.