Hard Versus Difficult – You Can’t Survive Both When Scaling Your Business

Scaling a business is and will always be hard work, but we almost always make it more difficult than it needs to be.  The distinction between “hard” and “difficult” is critical: hard refers to the inherent effort and discipline required: Relentless focus, willingness to step out of your comfort zone, and consistent hard work.  Difficult, on the other hand, is often self-created and organizationally created, stemming from not staying focused on what matters, lack of clarity, and making poor and inconsistent decisions.

How do we make scaling more difficult than it needs to be? The top five:

• Pursuing too many initiatives at once – When we do this (and we often do it), we are diluting focus and resources.  When everything is important, nothing is.
• Strategy is good, but not great – Without a clear, well-defined and disruptive strategy, we are using a vague, shotgun-style method to growth.  Sure we will move forward, but not very far.
• Internal and customer communication processes are lacking – Communication can often been slow, incomplete, non-actionable, and in some cases, almost non-existent.  Breakdowns become common, preventing information from flowing effectively up and down the organization. How can a business scale effectively with dated and/or incomplete information?
• Execution is inconsistent – Execution often suffers, often stalling at 80% of what’s needed for real growth.   This can be a people issue or a strategy issue as well. Do we have the right people to execute our strategy?  Is our strategy flawed?  Both?
• Simplification doesn’t occur regularly – One of the number one jobs of executive leaders is to constantly and vigorously find ways to simplify the business as it grows.  If you don’t, you build complexity on top of complexity, in turn negatively impacting your growth rate, your profitability, and your culture.  Adding layers of complexity frustrates teams and decreases performance.

What to do instead to decrease the difficulty – the top six hacks:

• Challenge your strategy – Is it spot on?  Does it resonate with our clients, prospects and internal employees?  Is it specific, unique and monetizable?
• Question what you and everyone are doing – Assuming your strategy is on point, is what we are focusing on aligned with it?  Are you chasing one-offs for revenue?  Are you the one that struggles to stay true to the strategy you created?
• Assess your people – Often the team that got you here won’t get you there.  That doesn’t mean that some can’t be developed/coached to what the business needs today, but not all will be able to make the leap.  One of the biggest mistakes that CEOs make is not evolving their team to match where the organization needs to go.
• Establish weekly customer and employee feedback channels – There are set questions you should ask customers and employees each week, and every executive needs to be having these weekly conversations.  By doing so, you proactively get actionable data more quickly.
• Build a culture of simplification – Enable teams and individuals to propose ways to simplify the business.  As leaders, constantly challenge what is being done today and why – and get the team to help you simplify.
• Create radical transparency and accountability – Share your strategy, post it everywhere, and allow people the freedom to challenge what they are currently doing or any new initiatives if they don’t intuitively align with the strategy.  You want them to do this – it makes you better as a leader and as an organization.  If you can’t explain how an initiative aligns with your strategy, should the company be doing it?

These are just a few suggestions on how to make scaling less difficult.  Again, it will always be hard, but reducing difficulty is the only way you can make the journey.  If you wan’t more ideas on how to scale with less friction, connect with me.