- Where to Find Help
As the owner of a small to medium size business, you may have felt the need to ask for help but not felt comfortable doing so. Owners of businesses are often skilled in the business they own and enjoy the respect of their family and friends. If their businesses are successful (profitable), it is usually based on their leadership and good fortune. But things change and sometimes the successful are faced with difficulties and even poor results. The humility it takes for an owner to recognize that business is a team effort and that the policy-making group of a business needs help is a principal factor in business success. What is the best way to seek help?
You probably expect me to recommend a consulting intervention. When I am consulted, the first advice I often give is to find a new way to perceive the business through all levels of the business. New perceptions come from the observations made from the experience of the employees of the business. Yet these perceptions are often not passed along to the owners or the policy-making group of the business. This is the first place to find help.
Yes, a successful business is a team effort, but the chemistry of each team is different. Within a successful business are many individuals who have contributed to that success and have observations about the business that are unique and therefore helpful to forming new perspectives. In many businesses those who are not members of the policy-making group or in executive management are not consulted about their opinions concerning the operation of the business. It is often difficult for an owner to determine if this is the case in a business. Candor is often not an encouraged trait in a business. Yet there is knowledge and wisdom in the experience and opinions of those who operate the business.
There is a reason for a chain of command, and in most businesses that hierarchy should be preserved. Yet if there is knowledge or opinion that is valuable and available only by direct contact with an employee, how should that contact be handled? There are different ways to accomplish this contact.
Perhaps the most commonly used and most dangerous is that of the respected intermediary. This is a person within the business who is trusted by most elements of the business and receives candid communication from these elements. This information is given to the policy-making group by the intermediary. The danger comes from two sources: the integrity of the intermediary individual and the difficulty of maintaining the trustworthy status of the intermediary. Does the intermediary have an agenda? How confidential can the communication remain? Once the intermediary is compromised, the resulting distrust, both for the intermediary and the policy-making group can be toxic.
The better solution, that used in Dynamic Planning, is to recruit observations on the format that also contains the operation plan, monitoring metrics, revisions, and other relevant communication. Dynamic Planning, explained in detail in the Substack, Owning A Business, http://rickriebesell.substack.com, utilizes a format that allows all elements of a business to see the plan narrative, the monitoring metrics, revisions made, and comments of all using the format. The use of this format is an exercise in leadership humility, communicating the plan, the results of the actions to realize the goals of the plan, the revisions made, and the comments of those using the format.
