By Tony Bednar, President, Strategic Talent Partners
I recently had a great conversation with an entrepreneur (Visionary) on the East Coast.
I genuinely enjoy talking with Visionaries, and I’m fortunate to get lots of these calls. Over the years, I’ve developed a short list of questions I like to start every conversation with. The first is simple:
“Please tell me about your business?”
“I started the company two years ago, and we’re already doing $4M in revenue. We make high-end gardening supplies sold exclusively online, primarily through Amazon. I believe the business can triple over the next three to five years based on the uniqueness of the products – we seem to have found an untapped niche.”
I congratulated him on the early success and then shifted the conversation where it often needs to go – his leadership team.
“My sister is currently running sales and marketing,” he said. “She doesn’t really have a sales background. Most of her experience is on the advertising side, but she does pretty well. She’s also part-time.”
“Okay,” I replied, “how about the rest of the team?”
“My operations lead is almost full-time. He works two jobs, so I probably get about 30 hours a week from him. He’s related to my neighbor – that’s how I found him. He’s doing okay, but I don’t always feel like I’m getting the most out of him. He’s tired a lot. On the financial side, I’ve got a part-time bookkeeper. The financial model is straight-forward, and that seems to work fine for now.”
This kind of ad-hoc leadership structure isn’t uncommon at this stage of growth. So I followed up with another question from my list.
“If you think about the three core functions of your business – Finance, Operations, and Sales/Marketing – which one is most likely to keep you from hitting your growth goals? In other words, will growth stall because you can’t sell enough, can’t produce product fast enough to meet demand, or can’t manage the financial side?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“Operations. No doubt. I’m not having any trouble selling, and the financial side is in good shape. But if I can’t meet demand, or I can’t produce, store, and ship product efficiently, I’m toast.”
That answer told me a lot.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” I said. “It may be time to reassess your leadership needs – specifically around Operations. This role needs to be built for where the business is going, not where it is today. Ideally, this is someone who’s been through a similar ramp-up, understands production, fulfillment, and can implement the systems needed to support growth.”
He paused and then asked the question many Visionaries ask:
“But what about hiring an Integrator first and letting them fix these issues?”
“You could,” I said. “But here’s where stepping back and looking at the bigger picture really matters. An experienced Integrator is a significant investment – likely $220,000+ per year in compensation – and once they’re in the seat, one of their first moves will be to assess the leadership team and implement changes, very likely in Operations. That can put you in a tough financial position. Since an Integrator is very different from a pure Ops Leader, you’ll be facing a new dilemma. To hire/pay them both or ask the Integrator to work below their pay grade. This is not good for you, or the Integrator.”
I went on to explain how important it is to build a Talent Strategy that aligns with your Growth Strategy. I said, “Instead of reacting role by role, it’s often more effective to step back and map out what the leadership team needs to look like over the next three to five years. We call this a Strategic Talent Roadmap™. When you do that, the order in which you need to fill, or develop team members in key seats becomes clear. It also allows you to identify and prioritize other skill and experience gaps that need to be addressed. In this case, you may be better off hiring a pure Ops Leader now to help you solve your operational issues.”
“That makes sense,” he said. “I’m just starting to take money out of the business, and I don’t think the profits could support the Integrator and a new Ops Leader at the same time. Doing this in steps feels much better.”
Before we wrapped up, I asked about his knowledge/understanding of EOS®. He shared that he wasn’t running on the operating system yet, but he had started reading Traction. I encouraged him to finish reading the book and, assuming it resonated with him, to strongly consider hiring an EOS Implementer®.
As I mentioned, I sincerely enjoy speaking with Visionaries. I would love to see every entrepreneur out there achieve all of their goals. And selfishly, I’d love to help find every one of them their perfect Integrator!
At the same time, I’m a realist. Not every business (or Visionary) is ready for an Integrator, at least not yet. What I know for certain is this: Identifying the big issues in your business that are stalling growth, and aligning and prioritizing your employee development and hiring needs to solve those issues, is always the right answer. It may be hard for some Visionaries to accept, but an Integrator may not be your next best hire.
Still thinking about hiring an Integrator?
Check out this blog post to learn more:
