Business Growing Pains (2013): Aligning Your Communications

I previously wrote a post on Business Growing Pains and I decided that with another year under my belt and 18 more folks hired, it was time for an updated post on this topic.

At Element Three, we completed 2013 with 65% revenue growth and we expanded our staff to 30 employees. It happened pretty darn fast, although our actual growth was a bit less than we anticipated. Regardless, it did become clear over the past year that all of the things you have to do in an organization to manage change effectively become increasingly more complex as you grow.

Reading up on Rockefeller

Granted, 30 employees is still a small company, but if our plan is to continue on this trajectory, it has become apparent that we must get it right NOW if we want to avoid sheer chaos later. I am an avid reader and I am currently reading “Mastering the Rockefeller Habits” by Verne Harnish.

Here’s one of the key points that Harnish makes:

There is a counter-intuitive aspect to growing a business: when a firm is under $10 million in revenue and just a little more focus internally on establishing healthy organizational habits would pay off in the long run, you have a tendency to focus mostly externally.

In turn, as the organization passes $10 million, the complexity issues start drawing the attention of the senior team inward at a time when it’s more important for the team to be focused more on the marketplace.

If we look at ourselves in the mirror here at Element Three, this is exactly the behavior we found ourselves starting to exhibit. Thankfully, we’re taking a pause at the beginning of 2014 to realize that at this growth juncture, while new business development remains very high on the priority list, we are intentionally dedicating many resources to getting our internal processes shored up.

This is the step that many companies fail to take because it is SO DARN HARD TO DO.

So where do you start?

There are so many steps to take it can lead to analysis paralysis and you end up doing a little bit of everything and all of nothing. I am a big fan of Patrick Lencioni and his “Advantage” book combined with “Death by Meeting” are the perfect tools to plan your attack.

Where is Element Three starting? With a realigned communication methodology, as is outlined in all three of the books that I have mentioned above.

The catch is, in order to have a clear communication plan, you need very clear messages to communicate, which takes us to the real step one, which is creating a one-page strategic plan that drives the identification of goals, which in turn, drives the basis of all communications.

We are tackling this first step in an off-site, all-day leadership meeting this month, out of which we hope to jump right into our new meeting structure that will drive our communication strategy. We know this will take LOTS of practice and will be messy for awhile but I really believe that if we can master the art of intentional internal communication, it will positively impact absolutely everything else we do in our organization.

Lucky for us, we are also at a stage where, from a marketing perspective, we are in a good place simply because we practice the strategic inbound marketing that we preach. Our marketing engine can run smoothly while we turn and focus more on internal structure and processes without abandoning our external messaging.

If you have lessons that you’d like to share or discuss, send them to [email protected]– I would love to hear more about your own journey balancing growth and structural integrity.