Unblock business growth!  The rate of growth of medium-size businesses often slows considerably as they attempt to scale their operations further.  In this third and last article in the series, we’ll discuss ways that you can begin removing the systemic issues that are curtailing your business’s ability to grow.

In our first article, we looked at some of the signs that there are operational constraints on the growth of a business, including clues to be found in organisational structures and behaviours, operational performance and the use of technology.  Then we looked at some of reasons: external constraints on larger businesses, the complexity of multi-level organisations and lack investment in productive capability.

So what’s the trick to unblock business growth?

Unfortunately there is no magic bullet.   Whilst prevention is always better than cure, the reality is that most businesses have surfed the wave of exhilarating growth for some time before they notice the wave beginning to crash over their heads.   What you need is structure, focus, and the development of great management capability.

Each business will have different aspects of their operations that are holding them back.   Whilst it’s tempting to jump right in and fix what you perceive to be a problem, it’s much better to invest time to understand what’s happening first.  Then you can prioritise and improve.

Understand

When assessing your operational strengths and weaknesses, it’s important to consider all aspects of the complex system that is your business: the leadership, people, processes and systems.  Just looking at one aspect doesn’t explain why the system is failing to deliver to its full potential.

“Look wider; look higher; look further ahead and a way will be seen”

Lord Baden-Powell

It’s not enough to understand what is supposed to happen e.g. based on your ISO9001 – certified process documents or what managers think should be happening.  You also need to understand how well the key operational management processes are deployed across the business.  And to be truly successful, each aspect of good operational management needs to demonstrate a robust, structured approach to assessing performance and driving further improvement.

Prioritise

A good operational maturity assessment will make it clear, across the full spectrum of business processes, which areas need improvement.  From this, you can easily create a backlog of work to be done.

However, trying to fix everything at once is not effective.  This usually ends up with poorly managed projects, lacking in focus and under-resourced, resulting in loss of momentum and stagnation.  It can be very useful, however, to define a future state for each process and the organisation as whole, which paints an upfront picture of how your organisation could operate with great operational delivery processes.

Instead, its critical that you:

• • Define projects that are aligned to your strategic objectives.
  • Prioritise long lead-time projects that you need to get started.
  • Select a number of quick wins – these build momentum, and release further resources to deploy elsewhere.
  • Ensure that all members of the leadership team understand the priorities, working towards the same shared vision.

Once you have a prioritised backlog of improvement projects defined, you can start to work down the list to systematically improve your operational maturity and unlock your growth potential.

Improve

Obviously this is where the real value comes in.

Agile programme and project management are really useful here.  Even long term stratgic projects can be broken down into smaller elements that can start to add value.  And as you deliver the programme, be flexible; adapt your next priorities based on what you have learnt.

• • Keep the number of projects running simultaneously to a minimum – focus resources instead on quick delivery.
  • Identify capable people to manage and work on the projects, and give them the time, resources and support to deliver.
  • Seek out expertise from within and outside your organisation to help you understand and deploy best practices.  That may include training, reading and on-line research, seconding resources in sister companies or investing in external consultants like Protean.
  • Use business change techniques to ensure engagement and adoption of the improvements.

Learn and Repeat

This isn’t a one-off exercise.  This is continuous improvement at the business level.  A constant cycle of reassessment, prioritisation review and improvement can have dramatic effects.

Managers at all levels, when they realise the benefits, start to get more engaged and involved, especially if you’re highlighting the wins and recognising those who contributed.

When it starts to happen, you can feel the culture changing – people taking accountability, learning, and driving increasingly profitable growth.  That’s when you start to unblock business growth.