Defining Your Roles, Part 2

Sometimes, in the world of sales, you are a one-person show.

However, when you create an organizational chart to represent your company, it is no different from creating an organizational chart for a much bigger company like GE or Microsoft.

You have a CEO, CFO, a Vice President of Marketing, a Vice President of Administration, a Vice President of Operations, and so on, which I can relate to as the head of Shore Consulting. Your initials are often in all those boxes throughout the start-up period of establishing your company.

You can now perform all those tasks. Or, if you’re like most entrepreneurs, you’ll ignore some of the duties needed to create a great company because you don’t like or value those activities.

The issue is that these are typically the places that come back to bite you over time.

The structure of an organization is the system of roles, role connections, and rules that determine accountabilities and authority.

In a one-person company, you play all those roles and have all those role connections. As your company expands, you’ll need to hire the appropriate people and give them responsibilities.

Establishing each team member’s accountability and authority is a necessary step in the process.

The Characteristics of a Role

Where does the job fit about the other roles on the organizational chart? For example, who will the employee oversee? Who will be the employees’ boss? Who will be the manager’s manager?

What is the degree of work required for the position? Is this a Stratum I position? Is this a Stratum IV position?

You’ll get a feel of a role’s strata over time. The difficulty of the job and the time required to accomplish the most extended task define the stratum of a position. Initially, attempt to determine the duration of the longest job in the position.

This scenario is not always apparent, and you may need to decide if this is a front-line clerical job (Stratum I), or the sophistication of a front-line management (Stratum II), and so on.

What are the role’s areas of responsibility (functions)? These are the kinds of jobs that management may provide to an employee.

What are the connections between this job and other roles in the organization?

Identifying Your Role

If you are the business’s owner, there are just two considerations about your position. The first is stratum, which is difficult to establish since evaluating one’s degree of cognitive ability is challenging.

The first step is to make an inquiry about how far into the future you have a vision for your company – a goal that you can begin working toward right now.

If you see yourself selling the company when you retire at 65, that does not constitute a 15-year vision unless you can explain your strategy for selling the firm and what you are doing now to make that sale a reality.

Try not to allow your ego to get in the way of an honest evaluation of the most time-consuming job in your position, which will most likely be the most distant goal for your business that you can successfully strive toward.

Another point to establish is which organizational tasks you will assign and which you will carry out yourself. For example, you may opt to hire a Marketing Director to whom you can say, “Here is where I want us to be in our market in 18 months.” Make it happen.”

You may alternatively opt to carry not just the marketing goal but also the strategy so that you may choose how to get there that 18-month objective. From there, assign specific tasks to assist you in getting there, such as “Get us a table at the conference in April and prepare the handouts for it.”

Identify and Hire the Best People for the Job

Once you’ve established a position, you’ll need to figure out what skills an employee will need to succeed in that capacity. The job strata indicate the degree of cognitive capacity needed of an individual.

You may decide what abilities the employee will need based on the areas of responsibility. You will explain to any applicant for the position what kind of work would be required and what a typical day will include.

They must decide if they will appreciate the job enough to devote to the effort involved. You will want to avoid anybody who has personal issues that will prohibit them from doing well in the job.

Most entrepreneurs begin by hiring excellent people and then finding out how to put them to use. However, to create a successful company, you must employ someone who can fulfill the criteria of a position.

If the individual you employ lacks the cognitive capacity required for the job, you will not complete the duties you should allocate to that role.

You will not execute your approach since those tasks are derived from it. You will not achieve your goal if your approach is your means of achieving it. It’s that easy.

Relationships Based on Roles

You may achieve coordination between responsibilities in a small start-up company via goodwill. People assist one other, and workers who lack “team spirit” find themselves out of work.

However, as your company develops and your vision, strategy, and structure become more apparent, you must explicitly define how your employees interact with one another. This method occurs in two ways.

First, communicate how you want them to collaborate. Everyone on your senior team must understand the goal you are pursuing, your plan for getting there, and your colleagues’ role in putting the strategy into action.

Second, you must describe how You should organize the task.

For example, do you want your marketing manager to consult with your sales manager before implementing a program? Do you want the marketing manager to double-check all goods to ensure they have the desired look? Your vision and strategy provide the overarching framework for how your team members will collaborate.

When one of them needs assistance from the other, or when one of them requests that another alter their approach to a job, they should consider how you would like them to collaborate. If they are unsure or if their responses vary, they should consult with you.

When your company has three or more layers, you may need to be more explicit about working connections two or more levels below you.

For example, you must be clear about who in the business may get what services from the Director of Marketing and if the Director of Marketing has the power to prevent someone from marketing in an unconventional manner.

Wrapping Up

Your company vision is formed by the role you wish to play. In turn, your responses to the questions: “What part do I wish to play?” will define your approach.

What kind of person do I want to be? The answer to that will create the vision and strategy that determine your company’s structure.

Until next time, learn more to earn more.