Who in your business team is accountable for doing what? Do you have one person assigned to each task that keeps your business functioning and makes your customers happy?
If you don’t, then perhaps it’s you, the business owner who ends up doing more than you should. We see this happen all the time, and it’s the key contributor to business owners not having time to work ON the business or not being able to take time off.
But before you throw your hands in the air in despair, we want to share a few steps that help set up your business processes and procedures so that each person on your team knows their job, does it right and lets you get on with your role (and your life!)
And you don’t have to create these business processes yourself. You’ll get a better response and take some of the load off if you engage your team to help set them up.
First up is the Organisation Chart. Many businesses don’t have one, but it’s the easiest way to see – at a glance – who does what in your business and the lines of reporting. Each ‘box’ should include the person’s name and their role. Org charts help when it’s time to make major decisions, resolve minor internal conflicts, recruiting and growing the business.
Make sure your Org chart is designed for the ideal future of the business; with some names appearing in multiple boxes in the first instance and with lots of blank boxes for future growth! Get your team on board by placing and moving post-it notes up on a wall until you get one that the whole team is happy to go with, instead of getting one person to draw it up alone. Keep it up to date and display it prominently.
Next up in business procedures is Position Commitments, which should articulate, in a single line, why that job exists. What overall outcome does that role need to achieve? List key activities, processes and outcomes that the role is accountable for. Again this is a business process that the team can brainstorm and have a hand in. After all, it’s their career you’re shaping!
Remember that every business activity should be listed in someone’s Position Commitment, because if no-one is accountable for it, chances are it won’t get done.
To make it easy to track that these Position Commitments are being fulfilled (and you are not doing a whole list of activities you shouldn’t be doing), identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each of them. KPIs are simply objective and measurable outcomes aligned with your company’s vision. There’s a business expression “what gets measured gets done”. If you set a goal around a certain outcome, the chances of that outcome occurring are much higher, simply because you have committed to managing and measuring the results.
What are the four or five things you can objectively monitor to know that a role is being done properly? Each role in your Org Chart will need its own set of KPIs.
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