Tricky topiary and the common people perils in fast growth businesses

As we are all thinking about growth this month, it reminded me that I’m often referred to as Edward Scissor hands when it comes to gardening. My ability to cut back a shrub or tree to within in an inch of its life (and beyond sometimes 😬) is well known by my wife and my neighbours in the close where I live.

One thing I have noticed though, is that some shrubs (the ones that survive) actually come back stronger and seem to grow faster, meaning more “gardening” for me. So, whilst it is great to see a garden bloom, it’s not just a matter of sitting back and letting go. A bit like when businesses grow rapidly, where people are required to quickly grow, step up and take on more responsibility to ensure the operations keep on moving, but at what cost?

In her most recent blog, Michelle discussed that you should always be developing people, but promoting them into roles that include line management for the first time, isn’t always the best way especially if they are unprepared or untrained.

Does this sound familiar?  Are you promoting excellent team members because they are good at their job? We call these ‘accidental’ managers who often lack the skills needed to be  fully effective managers. And it isn’t as if there is a line manager book you can give them and say, “read this, you’ll be a great leader in no time”.

There are other perils to be aware of too, such as:

• Team morale which can suffer due to employees feeling the pressure of additional workload, which can then lead to feelings of negativity and disengagement.
• By not preparing new line managers for success, it can leave them with a feeling of a sense of failure.
• Unskilled managers feeling under pressure, operating reactively rather than proactively leading to bad decisions and ignoring the needs of their team whilst firefighting the day-to-day challenges.
• It can often feel like you have given the line manager a blank sheet of paper, so they just carry on doing what they did before and become a highly paid technician and the team are left without any leadership.
• And ultimately increasing staff turnover due to heavy workloads which means losing vital knowledge and then having to hire and train new people which takes time and money.

So, what can be done?

1. Michelle’s second lesson in her recent blog was to have a clear vision to keep focussed on where you are going. Ensure this vision considers the people element and challenge your thinking or ask trusted friends to challenge your thinking. Your vision then may need reviewing.
2. Realign your business strategy behind your vision and include how you will develop your people ensuring they have the right skills to meet the challenges of your business growth including any additional resource. Identify the skills gaps and allocate your learning and development budget (more on this in the next blog by Tracey).
3. Talent and Succession planning which is the process of identifying and developing potential future talent, leaders and managers, as well as individuals, to fill new or existing business-critical roles.

Traditionally, succession planning only applied to large companies with multi-layered top-down succession schemes aimed at finding internal successors for key posts and planning their career paths accordingly.

But with fast growing business, increasing speed of change and much flatter structures, succession planning now applies to businesses both large and small.

And as well as formal learning, there are many work-based methods that can help to develop people.

If you are not sure where to start with your people strategy or are unsure about how to go about identifying and developing talent, come have a chat with us (and share any good gardening tips too) and we can support you through this so you have the right plans in place to ensure your business can grow whilst your people bloom and flourish to their full potential.

Also, there is still 40% funding available for businesses in York, North Yorkshire and East Riding which covers a wide range of our development activities from an one day introduction to leadership workshop to our 7-month experiential leadership development programme that can help your greatest assets to thrive, grow and prosper.

And remember if you are a budding horticulturist and want to take part in our Great Giant Sunflower Grow-Off 2023, contact us for your seeds. I’ll be giving it a go and trying to grow something instead of cutting it down! Just call me Alan.