Kevin Herring

A company of one.<br /><br />It may begin this wayan entrepreneur, an idea, a garage, a little money, and, as many often say, a bit of luck. Initially, the successful entrepreneur may build the product and spend most days trying to peddle it. If all the pegs fall into the right holes, the business succeeds and begins to growboth a blessing and a curse as trying to manage everything can become overwhelming. Focusing on his or her role as CEO, the entrepreneur looks to unload some hats by hiring people with specialized skills who will provide support to the business as it expands. Because the CEO can't be an expert in all support functions, each department begins to take on a life of its own as it expands in size and grows more sophisticated to support more and more complex workplace requirements.<br /><br />This blissful evolution continues until one night when the CEO has a nightmare. In it, overhead has ballooned into a huge, bloated bureaucracy. The CEO has only a vague understanding of what staff functions now do, but knows each non-revenue generating department is gobbling up resources that could be used to expand sales and production or improve product quality. Core business leaders are complaining that rules and policies are strangling their ability to respond to customers. Jolted from sleep, the CEO awakes to the realization that it's not a nightmare, but a reality. In the next several hours, what should be quiet repose becomes a frantic search for answers. Finally, a revelation: the CEO needs to know what the staff groups are contributing. He must call on each staff group to provide an accounting of its stewardship in terms of value added to the core business.<br /><br />The emerging dawn finds the CEO at a computer hastily formulating an email to every staff group leader calling for an accounting insisting on an explanation of value added to the core business for resources expended by the department. Soon, each staff group is in hastily organized meetings determining what to present to the CEO.<br /><br />Human resources staff members take a hard and somewhat painful look at their activities to see how much they truly support the operations. The entire department meets offsite to analyze every major department function. As the staff peels back the layers, the group suddenly realizes that most of its activities support the core only peripherally and many add zero value. According to the CEO's email, if this is the case, they are directed to prepare a plan for shifting their focus to add greater value. Building from the perspective of the core business, the group creates new, more solutions-focused, functions for itself. Training becomes a resource for building specific core business capabilities demanded by the production group and helping poor performing work teams to boost productivity. Instead of the usual daily employee relations' firefights, the staff begins formal one-on-one coaching to front-line leaders addressing problems that have led to work team mistakes and poor quality. In HR's analysis, pesky regulatory tasks show up as essential for business, but non-value adding. These are scrutinized with a fine-tooth comb for inefficiencies and possible outsourcing.<br /><br />IT staff, responding to the CEO's demands, recognize they need to work with their internal customerswho have felt more like prisonersto create solutions for which production and service groups have been rattling their chains for years. Some IT staff will now focus attention on increasing work team productivity through the use of technology tools, others will design solutions for customer service deficiencies, and yet another group will partner with accounting to provide core workers with rapid feedback in productivity, costs, and overall company performance.<br /><br />When operating as a company of one, the CEO had little trouble staying in touch with the core. It was simple: build a productfind someone to buy it. But after expanding to hundreds, or even thousands, of employees, the workplace became much more complex making it more critical for the CEO to ensure all resources continued to support the core business. Staff groups, particularly, must not lose sight of that as their primary reason for being. A periodic accounting from staff groups to the CEO was one good way to maintain the company-of-one focus by keeping staff groups contributing value at the core level. And as for the CEO's nightmares&well, let's just say it's not the staff groups haunting him anymore.<br /><br />Trying it on for fit: Leaders may challenge their staff groups by asking the following questions about their activities:<br />1) How do current activities add value directly to the core business? If they don't, in what ways can they be re-invented to do so? If the activities currently add little or no value and can't be re-invented to do so, should they continue? If so, how can they be accomplished more efficiently?<br /><br />2) Are the activities accomplishing something those in the core business care about? If not, refocus on specific core business concerns.<br /><br />3) Do activities solve core work problems? If not, seek greater understanding of the core business and re-focus efforts.<br /><br />4) Can activities be shown to impact in positive ways profit, quality, or service? If not, search for ways to have greater bottom line impact.<br /><br />5) Do activities generate a strong, positive ROI? If not, re-assess and/or re-prioritize value adding activities.<br /><br />Send an email and let me know what you learn from your experiences. I would love to hear from you!<br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="1"> 2007 Ascent Management Consulting, Ltd<span>     </span>All Rights Reserved.</font></p>