Time to Reorganize Your Business Structure?
Are you and your staff buried by an avalanche of work?
Do you have too much on your plate? Are your people overworked and struggling to keep up with the pace of your business?
It’s not an unusual circumstance. All businesses experience growing pains at various stages. But a continuous pile up of work leads to a creeping fatigue and flatness within the organization. Staff burn out. They start to resent the workload, the pressure, and the leadership. Waiting for things to slow down and level off is not an answer. Nor is working harder or longer. That just delays the inevitable breakdown.
Rather, it’s time to get strategic. The fact is you’ve likely outgrown your business structure. You need to stop, analyze, and reorganize.
How you choose to improve your organizational structure will vary. The details and specifics of your plan will reflect your particular business and goals. But here are some things to consider, do, and ask as you evaluate where you are and where you want to go:
Revisit your company’s mission statement. Do the activities and roles of your employees line up with the company’s goals and mission? Does your staff know and understand the mission of the company? Do you have the necessary resources to accomplish your mission? What do your customers and clients think about you? What do you want them to think about you?
Elicit feedback from all your employees, not just your management team. Staff working on the front lines can often provide valuable insights. Also, seek advice and input from mentors and peers in other fields; an outside perspective can shake you out of a myopic point of view.
Plot where you want to be in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, etc. And do a little dreaming while you’re at it. While there’s no perfect organizational structure, it’s healthy to ask what you would do in a “perfect” world. It encourages you to think big, and that always generates fresh ideas. And then you can backfill from there.
Periodic check ups are required. A good leader keeps his finger on the pulse of his company. As your business grows, you’ll need to regularly re-evaluate and restructure. It’s a good idea to plan yearly check ups. Ask questions like: do we need to expand the organization? Or just tweak it? Is everything flowing the way it should be? Are we meeting our goals? What’s one improvement we could make?
If you want to remain effective, efficient, and competitive, regularly evaluating the state of your company is a must. So don’t wait until your business is out of control; seize the future and plan ahead now.
