There are some jobs I just should not have.
That’s why I pay others to take care of my bookkeeping and invoicing, protect and support my IT, and monitor my digital analytics.
There are other jobs I will always have because of the size of my business. And there are jobs that only I can do.
As your business has grown you’ve added people too. But have you built your org chart with intention?
What I usually see is an org chart that developed out of necessity with jobs created around the talents and strengths of individual performers and owners wearing more hats than one person can possibly manage. It is usually an org chart that has mutated rather than evolved.
In some cases, you’ve tried hiring but couldn’t find the right fit or you delegated only to take back the tasks and responsibilities later. Hiring and training people takes time and, frankly, may not be your favorite thing to do. So you don’t. And your workload keeps growing.
That means you work as much if not more than when you first started. It’s exhausting and it's wearing you out. In addition to the toll it can take on your physical health, relationships, and peace of mind, personally staffing multiple roles on your org chart is cutting into your profitability and lowering your business value.
In my last article, I wrote about intentionally bringing other people into the decisions that have historically depended on you alone. Widening your circle and getting more help when making key decisions is important but may still be rooted in the assumption that you will always be the one leading the decision process.
To create a business that is less dependent on you, eventually other people need to be responsible for making many decisions without you. That requires intentionally designing an organization with the roles, responsibilities and authority to operate without you at the center.
If your goal is to build a company that can operate successfully without depending on you to make decisions, solve problems, and perform functional sales and production roles all day long, it’s time to right-size your role and design the org chart you need for the business you want.
I’ve looked at EOS accountability charts that have the owner’s name in almost every box and yet few, if any, of their Rocks prioritize actions and decisions that will intentionally reduce owner dependence 90 days at a time.
Maybe your vision is to build your business so you can work fewer hours, have more time to grow and develop your team, shed all the tasks that you hate doing, or pour yourself into a new line of business.
Great! What’s your timeline?
Now, build that future org chart without your name on it.
You’re still the owner. You can even occupy one role on the chart, if you really want to. But you can’t have more than one well-defined, narrowly focused job that you are best suited for.
What does that org chart look like?
By the time you get to that point, let’s say 3 years from now, what key roles will need to be filled and by whom to ensure your business to hit its revenue goals, achieve its profit margins, and afford to attract and retain the talent needed to take you off the org chart?
What changes have to happen between now and your future date to make that org chart a reality? Now you can reverse engineer an org chart for each of the next three years to get to your desired future.
Your business, like many I’ve seen, has probably been built around people rather than responsibilities. You had to do it all when you started out. Some things have been delegated along the way and some of your first hires now have an assortment of duties that may or may not make sense for one person to have.
An employee may have been promoted because of longevity but now holds a title they don’t have the qualifications to perform. You may have three titles yourself depending on what happens to need your attention that day.
Designing the future organization requires you to temporarily set all of that aside.
Instead of asking whether Susan could become VP of Operations, ask what the person responsible for operations will need to own.
Instead of asking whether your current bookkeeper can grow into the financial role you need, define what financial leadership will actually require as the company becomes larger and more complex.
Instead of assuming you'll continue handling major customer relationships because you've always done it, ask whether that responsibility belongs with the CEO, sales leader, account management team or someone else.
Define the role first. Then determine whether someone you already have can grow into it.
If you hold that role, then ask if you want to keep it or whether it’s keeping you from doing other things you want to do. For those roles you have, like, and want to keep, consider what risk that creates for the business.
If you’re the only one doing business development, writing every estimate, leading every project, or performing every procedure, what happens when you want to work less, take a vacation, or find a prospective buyer? What opportunities for learning and growth are you denying your team by doing it all? Whose leadership potential are you holding back. Will they eventually leave to grow elsewhere?
Once you've designed the future organization, compare it with what you're doing today.
You may discover that you're effectively serving as CEO, head of sales and COO. Or that your leadership team can run day-to-day operations until something unusual happens, at which point the decision comes right back to you.
You may find responsibilities that no one officially owns because you've always handled them. Or important relationships that exist primarily between you and a customer, banker, vendor or employee. What essential, undocumented labor are you doing that invisibly holds things together?
Now you can turn the changes you want to make into goals and action items. You can move from a mantra to "delegate more" to making strategic decisions about whom you train and mentor, hire, or release.
You can tie promotions and new hires to specific revenue, volume, and profitability goals. Documenting policies and procedures will be a natural next step that makes it easier for current and future employees to meet your performance expectations, reduce rework, and avoid mistakes - even when you’re not there.
You’ve created a transition roadmap by creating an org chart for each year tied to annual goals and clear action items. As you follow the roadmap, you can become more comfortable delegating responsibilities, changing roles, and stepping back to let others lead.
A future organizational chart can look intimidating if you immediately see more boxes and additional payroll.
That's not necessarily what it means.
A function needs to be owned, but that doesn't always require a new full-time executive. Some responsibilities can remain combined for a while. Others may be handled by an existing employee who is ready to grow. You may use an outside resource for finance, HR or another specialized function until the business is large enough to support the position internally.
And some of the roles on your three-to-five-year organizational chart may not make sense for another two years. Or until you hit specific revenue and profitability goals.
This design activity doesn’t create a hiring mandate. It allows you to make decisions with a specific end result in mind. It allows you to speed up or slow down your staffing choices as priorities and timelines shift. You get to see whether your business has a genuine capability or capacity gap and choose how to respond rather than simply responding to what seems urgent or important.
There's another reason I like this exercise.
It forces you to think about what you actually want your own role in your business to be.
Some of my clients can’t wait to make their next hire so they can step out of a frontline role and spend more time setting strategy and developing their team. Others want to hold onto invoicing because they like seeing the revenue numbers even though it’s not what they love to do and they know they are a bottleneck in the process. A few have already stepped back from daily operations and settled into the roles of shareholder and board chair.
Most are still working in their businesses every day, holding functional roles in sales and service delivery. They’ve engaged me to help them design the future org chart that doesn’t have their name on it and to work the plan to make it happen.
You don't need to reorganize the company tomorrow.
In fact, I wouldn't recommend taking a future organizational chart and immediately changing everyone's titles or announcing a new reporting structure.
Use it as a destination.
What roles will you eventually need? Which people have the potential to grow into them? Where will you need to hire? What responsibilities can you begin transferring now? What information will other leaders need in order to make decisions you currently make? Where are you still the only person who knows how something works?
Then start closing those gaps over time.
The goal isn't to get your name off the org chart. It's to build a business that doesn't require your name to be on it.
When your business can run without you and take care of your financial needs you have the flexibility to work in it if, how and when you want. You can own it forever, start selling to employees over the next several years, start bringing the next generation into management roles, or look for a third-party buyer.
