Your management style has helped you succeed in the past. But, surprisingly, it may be the reason why you struggle to grow now. How so?
Let’s look at two aspects: decision-making and communication.
Has it been your style to make both big and small decisions yourself?
And has it been your style to speak to each executive one at a time about his particular functional area–without necessarily sharing what you have learned with your other executives?
If so, you have been managing in what is called a hub-and-spoke style and you, unintentionally, may have created executives who no longer can help you grow.
What do I mean?
As your staff size grows—your headcount may be as small as 25 employees and as large as 100 employees–you can no longer be the one who makes all the decisions. And you can no longer be the only one who has the full picture of what is happening in your business. You simply don’t have the time to follow-up with each employee or get involved in every decision that needs to be made.
At this point, you need other executives who can shoulder the burden of making risky but sound business decisions and who can manage a larger staff with a wider scope of responsibility, such as managing multiple areas of your business.
The rub is, though, your style of management hasn’t prepared them for their new level of responsibility.
Since you made the decisions, you may have, inadvertently, groomed or attracted executives who prefer it this way. These executives are not risk-takers and will avoid making decisions, if they can.
And since you speak to your executives on a one-on-one basis, your executives haven’t had an opportunity to grow in their knowledge of how your business operates, outside of what they currently do.
So what can you do?
It’s time for some difficult changes.
First, change your communication style with your executives, expanding from just one-on-ones to team meetings. Hold executive team sessions to develop both a strategic and operational plan. Hold executive quarterly meetings to compare your performance to your operational plan. Hold monthly and weekly meetings to focus on the operations of your business.
Besides creating a shared understanding and executive team commitment, scheduling these meetings gives your executives a deeper and wider view of how your business works and how to make it successful.
Second, to enable your executives to take on more responsibility, modify your own decision-making style. Provide your executives with the freedom to make their own decisions within their own area and within parameters you set. And, where decisions affect several executives, seek consensus, allowing them to understand more deeply how each area impacts another.
If you like to be fully in control, you will be uncomfortable giving away power and trust to someone else. But, as Dr. John Warnock, founder and chairman of Adobe said about being a CEO, “Your…objective…[is to]grow and get yourself fired…stop doing the job you’re doing and grow to the next level.”
And third, in what may be one of the hardest personnel challenges you will face, replace those executives who can’t step up to a more challenging leadership role.
By “replace” I don’t necessarily mean “fire.” As several CEOs have commented to me, find this executive another job in your business. After all, he has helped you to succeed and has skills, experience and knowledge that are valuable to you and your business.
And if you are not sure who might be a problem, talk to your executives. They usually see a glaring problem with one of their peers before you do and, in fact, are wondering why you haven’t replaced him sooner.
A hub-and-spoke management style, while effective for very small companies, can stifle growth in larger ones. It’s time for change–not only in your executive team but also in how you manage. Making these changes, difficult as they may be, lays down a management and leadership foundation that will put you back on the path to growth.