Systems and processes are a beautiful thing when executed properly. Today, we’re covering an ops playbook for managing your team.
I’ll credit Jim Collins in Good to Great for the “right people, right seats” concept and Gino Wickman in Traction for the accountability chart tool. A quick overview of each:
- Right people, right seats — Concept of having the right person with requisite skills sitting in the seat (job) which requires those skills. Think of this as finding a match for the person and the role.
- Accountability chart — Tool outlining all roles and responsibilities for your entire company. Also known as an organizational chart.
1) Why does this matter?
Your organizational chart is the single most powerful tool for simplifying your business. It’s even recommended as the first place to start when implementing Traction / EOS.
If you want specific reasons to do this:
- It will clarify all roles and responsibilities for your team (and add accountability)
- You’ll quickly see gaps, bottlenecks, and where teammates are “stepping on each other’s toes”
- Communication will improve instantly (everyone knows who does what)
- Hiring decisions become a breeze
- Culture improves as a result
2) How do I make an org chart?
Let’s boil this down into simple steps:
- List out all tasks and functions required to run your business day-to-day (these are the responsibilities for each “seat” in your company)
- Group and consolidate similar items on the list
- Separate the list into 3 buckets: 1) sales & marketing; 2) operations; and 3) finance & admin
- Make a list of “seats on the bus” by grouping 3-5 responsibilities from steps #1-3 (the number of “seats” does not need to equal your current number of employees)
- Organize the seats by function and hierarchy (i.e. all the sales & marketing seats within that department)
- Look at your list of employees and add one name in each seat (it’s OK if one person sits in multiple seats, but only one name can go in each seat)
- Distribute to your team, clarify responsibilities, and revisit every 90 days
The final process might look something like this:
And a completed portion of the org chart might look something like this…
(Feel free to download a copy of this template to try it for your business).
3) How do I use an org chart?
First, make this a transparency tool. Share it with your team. Talk through the list of responsibilities for each seat. Make sure there is zero confusion around who’s doing what. Take time to walk your team through it in detail each quarter.
Next, Use it as a communication tool. When there is confusion around who to ask or where to go for something, point to the org chart.
Next, find your leaks. At Profit Mastery, we talk about financial leaks, but these are operational leaks:
- Were any roles left blank (i.e. no name attached)?
- Are a handful of employees listed in more than one seat?
- Did any roles have more than 5 responsibilities attached to them?
- Were any critical responsibilities for running the business left off the list?
These are causes for “balls getting dropped” or employee frustration or burnout or unhappy customers. You won’t be able to fix these leaks right away, but at least you’ll know they exist and where.
Last, revisit your chart every 90 days or so, especially in fast growing companies. Roles change, new roles pop up, new responsibilities pop up. Sometimes you’ll need to redesign the entire thing. Your business is constantly changing, keeping this up-to-date will keep you and your team running at the same pace.