When your business is sucked up into the hypergrowth phase I call the Tornado, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is, no phase lasts forever. That’s also the bad news! The faster you shoot up the acceleration curve of the business cycle, the faster you’re likely to drop on the other side. The faster your production outruns your back office, the faster your Tornado will turn into an Avalanche. The rule here [...]
People resist change – it’s our nature. Whether it’s trying to introduce a regular workout schedule into your weekly routine, giving up a bad habit, or even just adjusting your internal clock to Daylight Savings Time, it’s always a challenge to make a change in how we do things, no matter how good our intentions. If you doubt it, just look at the number of next-to-new treadmills that pop up for sale in the weeks [...]
Your big upward rush has stalled, and somehow, despite all those sales and all the new people you’ve brought on, your margins are rapidly shrinking. How could that be? And who will shoulder the responsibility? This is when the finger pointing and frustration typically begin in the part of the business cycle I call the Avalanche. Administration—the back office—has been throwing a lot of people and a lot of money at all these symptoms. Executive [...]
Have you ever seen a tornado up close and in person? I promise you, it’s not something you can ignore or overlook. The sky goes black; the wind starts to blow, and suddenly the trees are bent over sideways. If you’ve been listening to the weather reports, you’ve probably already prepared for its impact as well as you can; grabbing your flashlight, taking supplies down into your storm cellar if you have one, or getting [...]
Change is challenging for everyone, and when you’re changing up a familiar IT system for something new, a lot of your people are apt to feel lost, and may even be resistant. In order to get everyone on the same page, you need to make them part of the process so that they can see from a holistic perspective the problem you’re trying to solve. How do you help them understand why change is necessary, [...]
Smart leadership is crucial to any business going through the series of peaks and valleys I call the Business Storm Cycle; the Tornado of rapid growth and expansion, followed by the Avalanche period of fast deceleration, which is followed by the consolidation phase. Without a steady hand at the helm, even the best employees can become burned out and dispirited – and the company may flounder, or even fail. Jim Crane is a good example [...]
Once you have your processes and people where they need to be, your next step should be to define what technology you have and what you need. Just remember there are no magic bullets that will do all the work for you. IT is the backbone—but people and processes are the muscles and bloodstream. Each aspect of IT will need to go through an assessment. This lets you see where you have gaps and where [...]
For smooth operating, your IT department has to be professionalized, with policies and procedures to follow and standard operating procedures. While professionalizing your team, you want to focus on desktops instead of individuals; in other words, it’s the role, not the person that will keep everything running efficiently. If the role is well-defined and well-documented, processes will continue to move smoothly, without gaps, hesitations, or blockages. You achieve this by implementing a PMO—a project management [...]
So – you’ve hit the hard wall of slowdown we call Consolidation. You’ve gone through the heady, wild sales spike and rapid growth of the Tornado, and suddenly you’ve stalled. Sales are down, and you’re not making your margins – not even close. Now what? This is not the time to point fingers and blame people for whatever brought your Tornado to an end. No one did anything wrong. Everything you are experiencing is a [...]
Mistakes happen when you’re learning to ride out the ever-changing business cycle. In fact, most startup companies and divisions make the same ones. In the new product or acquisition phase, many departments get scant resources and little attention; unless they are doing something that actively hinders the growth product, they’re mostly ignored. This makes the people in those areas feel sidelined and left out. Resources and people may have been taken away from their departments [...]