Do you work long hours in your business without seeing the results you want? Do you find yourself spinning multiple plates with little time to focus on the things you want to be working on?
When it comes to business (and indeed life) there are three freedoms we all want to achieve: financial, time and mind. Another way to think about it is, more money, a better work-life balance and less stress. When aligned, business (and in turn your life!) feels great, if one is out of whack however it can leave you feeling overwhelmed.
One of the important things to look at when working on building a stronger, more successful business, is your business’s structure. This means the different departments and roles within the business. Ensuring these are clearly defined will help your business run smoothly as everything is set out and clear, and it will help you get the right people doing the right jobs for them.
Why should we organise our business into departments?
Every business, regardless of size, has 10 different departments. These are sometimes known as “the ten hats” due to the fact that one person can wear multiple hats, but each individual hat can only be worn by one person ideally. In order for a business to run effectively and efficiently, there needs to be a clear Organisation Chart which visually defines departments, functions, roles, and responsibilities. Not only for the current structure, but also for one that is scalable for future growth.
Four key principles you must never forget
1. There can be only one leader of each department. This is to ensure clarity responsibility and accountability, and to avoid any confusion for the team. Remember, one person can be the leader of many departments, but each department should have only one leader.
2. Responsibility and doing aren’t the same thing. i.e. if you are the leader of a department, you are responsible for ensuring things get done, but you can delegate tasks to other colleagues
3. Roles before people. This means get the roles in order and find the right person to fill it after. Don’t shape roles to people as this isn’t sustainable or scalable, if the person leaves then it’s difficult to replace them.
4. Function determines responsibility. In order to fully understand which department each key responsibility fits into, it’s useful to look at the function of each department first. For example, you may have people in your Operations team making calls to slow paying debtors. The function of Operations is to generate cash and the function of the Finance department is to manage the cash. It becomes clear that your Finance team should be making these phone calls, not your Operations team.
Once you have your business structure clear, and departments are defined, you will be able to take off some of the hats and delegate roles to other people, freeing up your time to focus on other things.
What are the 10 different departments in a business?
Shareholder
Director
Leadership
Product/service development
Operations
Marketing
Sales
Finance
HR
Admin/IT
You need to ensure that each department has only one leader and that all roles have a clear description and KPIs to measure success.
Ready to build a better business? How can we help................
Get in touch and as always, if you have any questions or need any support, please get in touch! You can send us an email to leah@beyondyournumbers.nz and we will be in touch.
