In a series of short articles we’ll look at what it takes to grow your business.

Part Five

Get your organisation structure right

Your ideal structure will allow your business to become more efficient and achieve economies of scale. This increases your bottom line profit at a greater rate than your revenue or sales.

Your organisation structure should allow your revenue to increase without creating bottlenecks.

An organisation structure should show all ten departments in your business, who is responsible for what, and how the hierarchy works. Now that might sound strange at first and you’re probably thinking “I don’t have 10 departments” but you do.

Each department should have only one leader (even if that’s you).

The same person can lead more than one department, but two or more people can’t lead the same department.

Every business or organisation has 10 departments:

1. Shareholder.
2. Director.
3. Leadership.
4. Product / Service Development.
5. Operations.
6. Marketing.
7. Sales.
8. Finance.
9. HR.
10. Admin / Technology.

We call these the10 hats of business.

If you’re the owner of the business and currently lead multiple departments, ask yourself how well you’re leading each department. It’s likely there are some you don’t enjoy as much as others and procrastinate doing the tasks within that role.

You could consider outsourcing or training one of your team members to take over the leadership of those departments you’ve been neglecting. They’ll probably do a better job and you’ll free up some time! Remember, overloaded team members (you included) are more likely to make mistakes or simply not get stuff done. Also, delegating like this paves the way for your team to grow and development improves loyalty and engagement.

So, it’s important that your Organisation Chart is a living and breathing document that your team understands and works in sync with. Check in regularly to ensure your team is aligned with the structure and the hierarchy is being respected.

During performance reviews, discuss whether there have been any changes to each team member’s role and update the chart to reflect these.

We can help you create the best organisation structure for your business, along with job descriptions for each role so get in touch and let’s see how we can help.

“Mission defines strategy and strategy defines structure.” – Peter Drucker

In the next part, part six we will look at how you can build a strong workplace culture