Episode 109: Ready to Scale? You Need This Map

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Dr. Melissa Smith 0:00
Are you ready to scale? So maybe you’ve gone through the paces and you’ve determined that yes, it is time for us to grow. So you need to join me today because I have got the map to help you grow.

Dr. Melissa Smith 0:16
Hi, I’m Dr. Melissa Smith, welcome to the Pursue What Matters podcast where we focus on what it takes to thrive in love and work. So congratulations, you’re ready to scale. So over the past few weeks, I have been focusing on what it takes to scale what it takes to grow your business. So that can be a scary proposition. But a few weeks ago, we asked the question, Are you thinking too small to really help you assess your readiness for growth? And then, of course, not too long ago, we also had three questions for scaling, growth, and really looking at the What the Who and the how and helping you really get into the details of the process of scaling growth. And I will link to both of those podcasts in the show notes today. So if you haven’t had a chance to listen to them, definitely go back and listen to them. And so you’ve gone through your paces, you’ve done what you’ve needed to do. And now it’s time to scale. And so today, we’re really going to be focusing on a process map for scaling. And so I hope it can be helpful for you. And here’s the thing, even if you’re not ready to scale, this is great, because it really helps you to plan the horizon and kind of see what’s around the bend. I think it’s also really applicable to anyone who works on a team who’s part of an organization that’s growing. So you don’t need to be a small business owner, you don’t need to be an entrepreneur, really, these are principle based processes to really help you go through your due diligence in terms of asking better questions and getting better answers. And when I think about the most effective leaders, right, they are able to know what matters, they’re willing to ask the tough questions, they do the work of trying their best to answer those questions, right? Not all of the questions have answers, that they use all of this to get to better decisions. And that has such a big ripple effect throughout the organization. And so that’s really what we’re focused on.

Dr. Melissa Smith 2:44
And today, we’re really going to be talking about a process map. To help you with that, of course, every week on the podcast, my goal is to help you pursue what matters and to strengthen your confidence to lead. And I do that in clarity to lead, which is all about clarity of purpose and vision. I do that with curiosity to lead which is all about self awareness and self leadership, some of the things I just talked about. And then of course, I do that with building and leading a community. And so today, we’re really focusing on building and leading a community and doing this due diligence in terms of a process map to help you because scaling can be hard, it can be challenging, but we don’t want to make it harder than it needs to be. And sometimes it’s taking the next step, and really paying attention to what are the factors, you know, that are really going to impact this. And so let’s jump right in to process to really help you with this. And so what I want you to do, so I’m just going to kind of walk you through it. And I want you to pay attention to you know, what, what applies to you and how it can apply. And so I’m going to say just a couple of things. And then I’ve got this six step process to really help you map things out.

Dr. Melissa Smith 4:04
Okay. And so you know, the first the first thing to do, and this is not step one, right, so this is just kind of an overview of the map is we want you to make a list of roles and responsibilities and tasks within your organization. So you break it down clear to the tasks, that’s great. Sometimes that’s not necessary. If you just make a list of roles and responsibilities that can work well. But be willing to go to the task level if you need to. And so this is really what we talked about last week in terms of what you know what needs to happen, and that is having some clarity around the roles and responsibilities within the organization. And so now we’re really going to focus on applying that and making a list of roles and responsibilities and tasks within your organization. Now listen, you don’t need to do that all by yourself. So the way that I would recommend doing This is have everyone make that list for themselves? What are their roles? Because maybe they operate in more than one role. And in small organizations, that’s often true. But what are their roles? What are their responsibilities in each role? And what are the tasks? Like, you know, if we think about that on a weekly basis, if we think about that on a daily basis, right, like every week, I have to take care of this as part of my responsibility in this role. So hopefully, that level of detail really makes sense. And I have just done this with my organization with some of my team members, not all of them. But with my integration team to really help us get the lay of the land. What do we need? What’s going well, what’s what’s not going well, and of course, the podcast of the three questions will really orient you to this process. But you know, have them do that. And then you review that, right. And so this is where you really want to ask some of these questions. This is where you want to pay attention to as you take a look at these roles, responsibilities. And task lists is where do you need to realign? Where do you need to reorganize? Where do you need to renovate? Right? Because perhaps we we really need to do some work here, maybe you don’t, maybe there’s a lot of clarity.

Dr. Melissa Smith 6:19
So I want you to be willing to look at new roles, I want you to be willing to look at condensed roles, I want you to look be willing to look at expanded roles, I want you to be willing to look at merged roles, right. And so we want you to be willing to think of merged roles, because as the organization grows, there will be necessary shifts. And so we just want to have an openness to all of that. And then so let’s look at your first step. So this is to identify current roles for team members. The second step is to identify current responsibilities under each role. And with that responsibility, I want you to also include the tasks so you if you decide to get to that level of specificity, that’s great. include that in step two, under responsibilities. And then in Step three, we want to identify gaps in current roles and responsibilities. So I’m just going to kind of call r&r. Right. So hopefully that makes sense to you. But we want you to identify your current gaps in roles and responsibilities. So what’s happening and what do you need right now? So we’re talking about current gaps? So consider what makes sense and what does not make sense, examine inefficiencies, changes in roles and responsibilities, expanded services and demand. So for where you’re at right now, in the present moment, what gaps Do you have. And now once you’ve done that, for the present, we also want you to examine potential gaps for the future, right now, you can’t plan for that perfectly, but you probably already have some tension points here, they has, maybe you’re already starting to grow, or as you anticipate growth, you’re like, Okay, we we this is gonna be a stretch like this is going to be a hard one. And so for this step three, when you’re identifying gaps in your current roles and responsibilities, I want you to think about that in terms of current, so present day. And I want you to think about that in terms of future. So, you know, if we move forward on this growth, what anticipated gaps do we see? And then for step four, we want you to identify potential responsibility shifts. So you know, for example, one of the things that’s happened in our organization is, we’re doing a lot more on social media and online marketing. And, you know, when, when we were a little smaller, that responsibility was really a shared among many team members. And that worked okay, when we weren’t doing so much. But certainly at this point, we are recognizing that there’s a big gap there, like it’s not as effective or as efficient as it could be. And so we’re really looking at, you know, do do we need a social media manager, right? So do we need a new role, and someone who can just really take the reins of this responsibility, so it’s not spread out across all these team members, which may not be the most effective way to approach that.

Dr. Melissa Smith 9:25
Okay. And so then you want to think about when we think about this potential responsibility shifts and rolls, and you want to think about is there another way, right, because it’s a it’s a lot to think about hiring or outsourcing, you know, bringing on a new team member, that’s always going to raise your costs. So we also want to be creative. We want to think outside the box. And so is there are another way, right. So for example, with this social media manager, is there a platform that you can use that increases efficiency and effectiveness without need to hire for a new role. So right there are some really great tools as it relates to, you know, social media management, that may make the management of these responsibilities much easier, and wouldn’t necessitate hiring someone new. So we always want to work smarter rather than harder. We want to see where we can save costs and not incur new costs. Right that because I always, always going to shift your overhead for sure. And you know, when you think about this question of is there another way, I want you to also ask, Is there a team member who is underutilized and could add these responsibilities to their role? Is there someone who Hey, like, I really want to grow into this role and into this responsibility?

Dr. Melissa Smith 10:48
So it’s worth everyone’s time to really consider this option and get creative, right? Like, are there internship placements that make sense? You know, my son’s been doing an internship with an organization for the past several months. He, I don’t know if he gets paid with that. But he’s learned a lot of valuable skills. And it’s not a great need for this organization. And I would say, that’s an example of being creative and really thinking about, you know, the solution is not always to hire another team member, it certainly might be, and especially when we’re thinking about scaling, but we want you to be creative, and really think about all of your options. Okay, so that is step four.

Dr. Melissa Smith 11:32
And then with Step five, we want to identify potential role shifts, right. And so I kind of talked about this a little bit earlier. But are there roles that need to expand? So maybe it’s more hours, more responsibilities? Are there roles that need to be separated? Are their roles that need to be merged? Are there roles that need to be created? And so really going through your due diligence, working with your team looking at those roles and responsibility lists, and really, you know, I would say collaborating with your team, to really figure out what’s going to be fast. And so that can take a little bit of time, but be willing, I think it’s also a good time to do some research and look at what are other organizations do? How are other organizations there? How are organizations doing this? How are organizations being creative, in in addressing some of these similar challenges. So look at someone else in your industry, you can look outside of your industry, because sometimes they have really good ideas that you could apply. And so we really do want to be willing to think outside of the box. And then the last step is step six, and that is to identify their responsibilities under then the new or modified roles and responsibilities. So right, you’re doing the roles and responsibilities list for what’s happening current. And then the net result is that you create a new responsibilities and roles, task list, right and table for each role in the organization. Right, talk about helping your organization develop some structure and accountability, this really becomes the foundation for building process frameworks. It’s powerful, it takes some time, takes some effort, takes some collaboration, but it is well worth your time. And then as you come up with those new roles and responsibilities, this is where we want you to create new job descriptions, right. And it should be pretty easy to do a job description at this point, because you’ve got that table right in front of you. And so that can be really helpful for step six. And so I want to review these steps again.

Dr. Melissa Smith 13:48
So the first step is to identify current roles for team members. Step two is to identify current responsibilities under each role. And you can get to the level of tasks as well, I think that’s really helpful to do that. And then step three, is you want to identify gaps in the current roles and responsibilities, you want to do that for the present, and the future. So the future meaning moving towards growth. And then step four is identify potential responsibility shifts, and I think that this is a good time to really look at, you know, for team members who are doing those roles and responsibilities, what would their ideal role look like? And this is where we can have really great conversations to help build accountability, autonomy and motivation at work. And this creates such big buy in for your team members. And of course, I talked about that with the three questions podcast so you can go back and check that out. Because we want to find ways to support people in doing the work that they are most excited about. And then again, Step five is identify potential role shifts, right and so this work really where we look at expanding separately Merging and creating.

Dr. Melissa Smith 15:01
And then our last step is six. And that is identify the responsibilities under the new roles and responsibilities, right and including the new job descriptions. And so this is a process map to help you scowl. If you’re ready to scale you get after this. And this can be super helpful. Even if you’re not ready to scale, this could be a really helpful process for you to assess your needs and to assess your timeline. And to help you plan right like if so if you’re thinking, boy, as you do this assessment, you recognize, okay, we need to start saving a little more money, because we’re going to need to be moving into a larger location, or we’re going to be needing to make these three hires in the next year. So it can really help you with planning. And it can help you to stay steady as you’re growing. Because of course, anytime you’re scaling, there’s so much uncertainty, there’s so much risk, and that will just flood you with fear, it will, if you’re not careful, it will leave you dead in your tracks where it’s very difficult to progress. And so this scaling map can be really helpful for keeping you steady and really looking at next steps. And so we always, always, always just want to break it down as much as we can without losing sight of the big picture. And so right like we think about the analogy of how do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time. And this scaling map can really help you get the lay of the land. And recognizing that you don’t need to do it all yourself, you shouldn’t do it all yourself. And so collaborate with your team to really figure out what’s going to be most effective in terms of roles and responsibilities as you move forward. So you can all grow together.

Dr. Melissa Smith 16:53
And so head on over to my website to check out the show notes. With the resources for this episode. Of course, I will link to the other two episodes, the other two podcasts that I did on this subject, so that you can review those if you haven’t had a chance to you can find all of that at my website.www.drmelissasmith.com/scalingmap, so one more time, that’s www.drmelissasmith.com/scalingmap. And you can find us on iTunes and Spotify, anywhere you can find podcasts. And please know I’d love a review from you to help other people find me. I’m also social so I would love to interact with you on Instagram. I have lots of great infographics about all of these topics to help you. I have some free resources as well which I hope can strengthen your confidence to lead and help you pursue what matters. I’m Dr. Melissa Smith. Remember love and work, work and love. That’s all there is. Until next time, take good care

Transcribed by https://otter.ai