The Growth Paradox: Conquering Complexity

Entrepreneurs who grow their business are often confronted with the growth paradox, which is the realization that while or after growing your business most everything becomes more difficult, although you thought things would get easier. Entrepreneurs believe that when they scale their business things will get easier because of increased teams, prospects and resources, but what they find out is it is actually more difficult primarily due to complexity. There are three essential elements to address in your business if you want conquer complexity - structure, processes, and systems. But first, what causes those complexities?  

Complexity starts with adding people, the bigger your team gets the more complex things become. The best way to understand and organize intricacies is through proper structure and developing an organizational design that allows you to scale people appropriately, knowing what roles to fill, when to fill the role, and with whom. Also, proper structure creates accountability and removes ambiguity, minimizing unnecessary complexities. Your organizational chart should be the road map to growing your team and with proper planning the complexities of adding more people can be mitigated.

Second, processes become more complex the more people that are involved. Often times companies grow while compounding redundancies and losing efficiency. The best way to avoid this is through continuous improvement efforts that require systems thinking and stakeholder engagement, plus the accountability which is developed in your organizational structure. When people own a process, and are held accountable for its effectiveness, then optimization and improvement is likely. Furthermore, empowering people with autonomy increases continuous development and procedural enhancements.

The third biggest contributor to complexity is a lack of focus resulting from inadequate business systems, an overall way of operating the business strategically and functionally. This includes tactical planning, meeting effectiveness, goal measurement and metric reporting, and how objectives are managed. Business operating systems need to be comprehensive but kept as simple as possible to maintain focus, especially when scaling. Your business needs a consistent cadence, or rhythm, to operate smoothly. Timelines, meeting schedules, and expectations should be predictable and understood by all. When everyone is on the same page from vision to day to day execution complexity is minimized. 

To conquer complexity, entrepreneurial businesses must have (1) an organizational structure that enables planning for talent acquisition, sets clear expectations, and accountability for all, providing clarity throughout the company; (2) streamlined and efficient processes that ensure effective workflows and cross-functional cooperation, plus a consistent system for monitoring and improving procedures; and (3) an operating system, a deliberate way of managing the organization as a whole - this includes an established meeting cadence, consistent rhythm for goal setting, measuring, and reporting, a balanced scorecard to monitor whats most important, and established communication protocols that keep information flowing across all functions as well as upstream and downstream.