During the time that I have been a Consultant in small and medium-sized companies, I have come across a series of deficiencies that businessmen cannot solve; a high percentage are unaware that they have these problems and blame circumstances when they do not achieve the expected results. A lower percentage knows the problem but does not know how to attack it, and focuses on the effects it generates and not the cause as such.
It is clear that there is no recipe to make a company have the results that its shareholders expect, and the variables are large and difficult to encapsulate, so this article does not intend to define all the causes and their actions to prevent them.
What it does claim is a methodology that has generated interesting results, which have arisen from the development of consulting in Corporate Governance. During this process, it was possible to identify a problem that SMEs have and how this has a negative impact on the implementation of the governing bodies.
In general terms, when a small company offers products or services to the market that satisfy the needs of its customers, they manage to achieve sustainable growth that usually occurs thanks to the knowledge and experience of entrepreneurs, but as a main variable, there is the time and dedication that business founders invest.
Ironically, this time and dedication is the reason that companies, when they become medium-sized, have an organization that is not functional to business operations. The fact that the founder is in all the operations of the company, causes him to dedicate all his time to "putting out fires" focusing on minimizing the effects of the problems, without spending time finding the cause and preventing it.
These companies lack an efficient organization, this is because they have grown at an accelerated rate that does not give them time to think strategically, reaching the point that the highest level managers become operational, and their subordinates simply assistants. This results in lower-level collaborators not being able to develop creative ideas that can improve the efficiency of operations, reduce costs, and so on. At the same time, if employees do not develop positive aspects, managers have no arguments to determine whether to grant them job benefits or not.
The effects of this dynamic leads to a vicious circle, in which employees are not motivated to work in the company and seek better options, generating high staff turnover. With this, the company releases competent workers and those who are satisfied with earning the founder's loyalty remain, even if they do not generate results.
How to solve this problem, it is necessary to establish a change process that allows employees to become the tactical basis for executing the company's strategy, generating immediate changes with results that can be seen in the short and medium term.
Process:
1. Group the operational tasks according to affinity and define the Objective they pursue. In some companies it is common to find that a collaborator performs many operational tasks that have little in common, diminishing their specialization and their ability to articulate these tasks for more efficient management. By grouping tasks, we help employees to have greater specialization, generating better results and creative solutions to common problems.
2. Select the collaborators who have the necessary characteristics to execute the company strategy, as main characteristics we enunciate Responsibility, Honesty, Leadership, Teamwork and Creativity. It is recommended to select one for each area previously grouped and that those selected "want and can" work at the pace that the company demands.
3. Train selected collaborators in management tools that allow them to streamline routine operations, leaving more time to develop creative solutions to improve process efficiency.
4. To delegate to the collaborators, the Objectives set forth above according to the competences and the disposition, to ensure that they are identified and are responsible day by day, that the proposed objective is met. Responsibility must be delegated together with authority, making the collaborators become Responsible for executing the strategy that high-level executives propose. This creates an intermediate level that allows tactical development of the strategy proposed by the company.
5. Monitor the results generated by the Managers, establishing indicators that allow them to measure their management over time, in such a way that their capacity (or incapacity) in fulfilling the proposed objectives is achieved.
6. Feedback to those in charge during the process, it is normal that within a month the expected results are not presented, it is necessary to take into account the learning curve and the capabilities of each collaborator. It is convenient to make feedback a constant process (one more activity of the executives) with a frequency of no more than one month, in order to provide them with the necessary support to achieve their goal. Usually, there are two variables that hinder the fulfillment of the objectives by those responsible, this is the lack of authority and the inefficient transmission of practical knowledge.
7. Document the process, taking into account the variables that will come to light at the time of implementation, this will serve to improve the process and adapt it to the company.
This process must be an integral part of business management, in order to strengthen the bases and middle managers to guarantee the execution of the strategy. Likewise, the aim of this process is to improve the working conditions of the staff, since competent collaborators can demonstrate their positive performance within the company.
In the end, it is possible to articulate a decentralized administration oriented to results, generating strategic and creative solutions to operational problems, developing improvement projects that will increase the competitiveness of the company in its environment.
If the execution was successful, high-level managers will achieve a focus on results, making strategic decisions with a macro vision of the business environment. This is how medium-sized companies can maintain this sustainable growth, achieving high efficiency in their operations and improving their competitiveness in the short or medium term.
