Evenhouse & Co., P.C.

Many different shortcomings can hold back the growth of a company. Some are obvious, such as poor cash flow management or flawed strategic plans. Others aren’t so easy to see.

Take, for example, disjointed or under-supported managers. If you don’t dedicate the time and resources to strengthening the bonds of your management team, and provide the support they need, your company may struggle with slower growth as a consequence.

Follow a collaborative approach

A good place to start is by making sure you’re following a collaborative approach to running the business. Develop strategic goals with your management team’s input and buy-in so everyone is pulling in the same direction. From there, actively work to keep managers engaged in meeting department-specific objectives related to strategic goals.

Collaboration has other benefits, too. More individuals participating in decision-making can mean more creative and well-thought-out solutions. A collaborative approach also distributes the burden of strategic planning so it doesn’t fall on only your shoulders. Sharing responsibility for key decisions — particularly as a business grows — is vital to facilitating progress and seizing opportunities.

Build an accessible knowledge base

Involving managers in decision-making calls for developing a robust, accessible knowledge base about your company’s product or service lines, organizational structure, market, customer base and operating environment. Your management team must be able to view, in real time, the information they need to contribute to strategic planning and guide their departments.

The good news is that today’s technology allows you to create a centralized platform for authorized users to share and access critical data so everyone is on the same page. For example, you can use enterprise resource planning software to gather, store and analyze business intelligence related to core processes such as human resources, financial management and reporting, and supply chain management. You can integrate customer relationship management software to track and share data related to customers, prospects and key contacts.

When in doubt, conduct an assessment

If you’re unsure where your management team stands, you may want to perform a formal assessment. This entails undertaking a thorough and confidential review of every manager to identify issues — whether cultural, technical or interpersonal — that may be detracting from team performance.

To help ensure objectivity, many businesses engage outside consultants specializing in executive or leadership development to perform such assessments. The assessments generally consist of live or virtual interviews, sometimes in group settings, and written or online evaluations. The goal is to gain insights into:

• Individual and group strengths and weaknesses,

• Team dynamics,

• Barriers to success,

• Areas of improvement, and

• Untapped opportunities.

Assessment providers typically issue results in written reports and debriefing sessions. Most will help you create an action plan to make use of the information gathered.

Consider an annual retreat

To take management team building to the next level, you may want to hold annual retreats. Doing so can be particularly important following one of the aforementioned assessments.

Management retreats typically follow a more intense format than company-wide team-building events. Ways to structure each retreat are limited only by budget, creativity and perhaps team members’ physical limitations. The goal is to break down functional silos and communication barriers and build up a greater sense of trust and unity.

However, to fully realize the potential value of a retreat, you must follow up. That means harnessing the experiences and breakthroughs that occur during the event and using them to create an action plan for improving management performance back at the office. (If you’ve also conducted a management team assessment, you can combine the two action plans.)

Give them support

It’s all too easy for managers to get caught up in their respective departments’ day-to-day trials and travails. That’s how growth inhibitors such as knowledge silos and leadership conflicts happen. Give your management team the encouragement and support it deserves. Our firm can help you identify and analyze all the costs of performance development at every level of your business.

© 2024