The Complex System: Story of an Entrepreneur

Roles & Responsibilities - Post #1

I've been dragging on my 10 keys to exponential growth series, but I really need to get some of this out. I've discussed R&R before, but I want to reiterate how critical I think this aspect of business building is. When I first started as an entrepreneur I never even considered writing a role description. I always assumed that because “I” knew what the company need and what I wanted out of the hire. As you can imagine (or maybe not) I made a lot of poor hires, and the ones that were really good often ended up doing things other than what I wanted them to do. I realized that my picker is good; that is to say I am pretty good a finding smart, hardworking, dedicated, passionate and on-culture people, but I don’t necessarily align them with the right roles. Of course getting great people is critical. In fact, this skill is probably more important because once I learned how to write a good role description, my recruiting acumen started to hockey stick. Here is how I approach a new role.

A good role description does 2 primary things; first, it gives me and my team an opportunity to fully vet out what it is we need and expect from the job. Second it gives the new hire a very clear framework for success. As simple as it sounds, if an employee doesn’t know what they are expected to do and if they are unclear about how effective they are at achieving the requirements of the job, they will most likely fail and certainly be frustrated. You would be surprised how many people at your company have no idea what is expected of them or if they are successful in the role.

I start by researching similar roles in other companies that I respect. For Leads360, I almost always start with Salesforce.com. Incidentally, borrowing what works from other companies or people who have proven success is one of my favorite strategies. There’s no shame in copying what works vs. reinventing the wheel (that’s a topic for another post). I go to Salesforce.com and look at the comparable roles. From there I start to build out the role. I always use the same formatting and I require all my managers who hire people to use the same format.

I think it’s important to include very specific and measurable objectives for the role and the performance metrics the person will be held accountable for. No matter where the employee is in the org chart, this practice will pay dividends and save you many headaches.

Mission, Vision & Values - Post #1

First and foremost, get the mission, vision and values right. This has been somewhat of a chore for me over the years. I think I've done three or four revisions, maybe more; but even as I tune the mission and vision, our core values and core purpose have not changed dramatically. I think that Jim Collins in Good to Great does a great job articulating the difference between "what your company does" and "who your company is". The theory being, that companies that enjoy enduring success have core values and a core purpose (who you are) that remain fixed while their business strategies and practices (what you do) endlessly adapt to a a changing world; he calls it "preserving the core, while stimulating progress". His research suggests that the best, longest lasting companies, have taken this approach.

So if a powerful vision embodies both the who we are and the what we do, then articulating one can be quite tricky. Even as I write this post I think we have more work to do on this topic; nevertheless, developing our vision, writing it down and articulating it to everyone in the company, repeatedly and on more than one occasion, has made a profound difference.

I remember at one company meeting someone asked me in so many words to articulate the vision. He said that the people here trust me and know that I have a plan, but sometimes they wonder who we are and where we are going. He asked that I tell them; that I put it on the wall; and that I make it clear so everyone can understand what it is we are trying to do. That inquiry really impacted me and I responded. A few months later I presented our 2008 strategy along with a detailed description of our vision. As a result our people are engaged, focused and driven toward a common goal.

When times get tough and fear of the unknown is abound, I love that I can hear the persistent hum of enthusiasm from my office; frankly, it's the thing that keeps me in this game at times.

10 Keys to Exponential Growth

As an entrepreneur, I think one of the most common and difficult challanges is the inevitable transition that occurs when you try to grow beyond your own reach. What I mean by this is that most entrepreneurs start small. Like me, I started in my living room on more than one occassion. Eventually I grew to a small office; then added staff, moved into a bigger office, raised money, etc. The list of growth steps goes on. But there is a moment when you realize that you can't see and certainly can't touch all the chess pieces. You need to let go. This is the difficult transition for many entrepreneurs. Going from small business to real company.

As someone who's been in the middle of this transition for the past 18 months, I can tell you, it's not easy. Over the next few months I'm going to start breaking down what I've found to be the 10 most important aspects of managing this transition and hopefully achieving exponential growth on the other side. In this post I'll share the 10 areas and in future posts, i'll get into details about each one. Please bare with me as this is a work in progress and will surely evolve.

1. Mission, Vision & Values
2. Roles & Responsibilities
3. Recruiting
4. Management
5. Performance Reviews
6. Accountability
7. Strategic Planning
8. Goals & Metrics
9. Financial Visibility & Budgeting
10. Corporate Transparency

So far, i've found these 10 areas to be the most important and have the most positive impact and where I spend the bulk of my time. If anything, this will be an interesting experiment as I apply these 10 aspects of running a company at my current business and in real time, share the feedback of my successes and failures.