Using Organizational Charts to Think About What’s Next
As a business owner, looking ahead is something we all do when our businesses are constantly shifting between growing and thriving. But how do you know where to grow? In this episode, Traci and Rob uncover how looking critically at your organizational chart and planning for the skills and roles you need to add to your team can be a great first step.
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Announcer:
Welcome to the Overly Human Podcast, where we discuss all things human in the workplace. Because it's not just business—it's personal too.
Rob:
So I've done quite a bit of thinking recently on how studios evolve over time. And what I mean, specifically, today, and I want to talk about, Traci, today, is thinking about how owner-operator roles change and how the org chart below them fills out and evolves over time.
And one of the things that got me thinking a lot about this is getting asked the question over and over and over again about, "Hey, I'm at this size. What should my org chart look like? What should it be? What is the right answer for me?"
And I'll tell you what, Traci, the more and more I think about it, the more and more I go back to the answer everyone seems to hate, which is, it depends. It depends on so many things.
How are you today?
Traci:
I'm good. How are you?
Rob:
I'm just living the dream.
Traci:
I agree with you. It does depend. And I love this conversation because I think it's always a good reminder to owners and founders of companies that we are all different. All of our companies, even if we're all in the same industry or space, we each have our own DNA. We each have our own vision. We have our own vision for our own lives as owners of companies. And we have our own vision for our own company.
And, as we grow and evolve, is when that tension starts to happen is like. It's that tension of like, "What do I want out of my life? What do I want out of my business? I'm growing. I have more people than I ever thought I would. It's exciting, but what do I do with all of this?"
And yeah, and I love how you say like kind of between even the ultimate "Where am I going? Where I've come from. What do I do with the in-between? Where should I be now? What should it look like? Can you just send me a picture?" And I think that's what you hear a lot, or people reach out to you and are like, "Hey, can you just send me an org chart? Can you just send me the roadmap? I just want a quick, easy answer. Send me what you have."
Rob:
And I like and I think that's the way we're all wired, to look at people who have been there before, who have had some success or traveled that road to say, "Hey, what advice do you have for my journey?" And, man, I keep coming back to this. Like, it depends, like not only on your company's mission and vision, but your own individual, as a human, what your mission and vision and strengths and weaknesses are, and where you're going, and who you've already surrounded yourself with, and your why. It really is like a more in-depth question because you know.
Let's set the stage a little bit. Okay? So we've talked about this before. But when we talk about company growth, small business studios specifically, I kind of think about three different phases for companies. There is that surviving phase, upfront, which is this, "How do I make it 'til tomorrow?" And it's very tactical. And it feels like quicksand. And it's just doing the bare minimum to keep your head above water. Then there is this middle phase, which is growing, which is you start adding people. And what does that look like? And then if you can transition to the next phase it's thriving.
And what I honestly believe is that if you continue to grow you cycle between growing and thriving for the existence of your company. But the idea is, you have to make it past the survival stage first. Okay.
The other thing I think we want to really quickly set out is you and I are huge believers that companies should have a mission and a vision and a set of values for which they operate. And those values, as we've talked about before, have to be backward-looking. They're a reflection of who we are, not what we aspire to be.
I also believe, and we've talked about this before… We believe—I'll use the word, we, here. I can speak for both of us, here, I think—is that individuals, specifically leaders, need to have a mission and vision and a set of values for their life, where they want to go, how they want to get there, in the set of principles, backward-looking on how they make decisions and what they value.
Now, sometimes there's a lot of synergy. And most of the time, when we start our business, there's a lot of synergy between company mission, vision, values and individual mission, vision, values. But I don't believe that you can always serve both of them at the same time.
Traci:
Right.
Rob:
And I think that's where the rub comes, is sometimes we have to make sacrifices on our individual mission, vision, values so that our company can achieve where they want to go, and not sacrifices as in like going against those values, but maybe not the most direct path to achieve that mission and vision so that then we can circle back around later. And I think that's where a lot of this conflict comes from for leaders as they try to fill out their org charts.
Traci:
Yeah. I think one thing I would just try to remind you, or remind everybody, as they're, sort of looking at their own personal vision for their life and the tension between what they have to experience with work on a daily basis, is I wouldn't say that sometimes our company's mission and vision will ever be at conflict with our own personal mission and vision. But work is work. So it's paid vocation. It's a means to an end, and sometimes the days are hard, and the years are long. And that's okay. Right?
I think we have to remember the mindset around work. So we're hoping that we're not using work just as means to consume, to make money, to feed our lifestyle, to get to whatever. If our ultimate life vision is just to retire on the golf course, I would push people back on that, like to say, "Okay, well, let's think a little bit more deeply than that." But if we have a life vision that's more based in contribution, or having a significant impact on the world, then we can find a way to live that out always, in every day, in our work, even when it's hard.
And I think that what we feel as we're growing companies is that sometimes we have to do things out of our natural gifting, or we have to let go of, sometimes, the time and the space to be able to like master a craft or to do just the things we love. Sometimes we have to, when we're building a business, really stretch ourselves.
And I see this when I'm coaching owners, because some owners love the sale. They love to be on the road. They love to be selling. They love to be talking about their brand. They are constantly vision-casting and thinking. Other owners love the craft. They love really designing, developing what's new in the innovation front. "How can we shift our focus from maybe not just serving educational institutions. But what if we do something that is more focused in a different industry? Or what if we straddle both?” And that's where they love to spend their time. Right? And other owners just love leading. They want to be with the people all the time, in the work, challenging the troops. And sometimes we have owners that love all three of those areas.
So when we're pushed into certain areas that don't feel as comfortable to us is when we can start to feel unfulfilled or uncomfortable, if we've done that for a long period of time. So in the beginning, we know it's a necessary evil to stretch ourselves. But then when we start to grow and we really start to feel traction and we get up to 25 – 50 people and we start to think, "Okay, all right, what is it that I like and don't like? What am I good at? What am I not good at? What do I have the funds to push off onto a non-billable person or a billable?"
And this is when we start to get into the thick of people saying, "I don't know how to craft this. What's the best way? And I think that hits right on the point that you're talking about is there's this, "I'm looking at myself as an owner. I'm looking at my funds. I'm looking at my people. I'm looking at my vision. How do I get this all to jive?"
Rob:
Yeah. And I think that's talking about this problem often comes up in growing businesses because, as you hit certain inflection points, and when we talk about inflection points, one of my favorite ways to look at that, my buddy Dan Mall told me years ago that inflection points in studios happen in line with the Fibonacci sequence. And I was like, "Oh, that's brilliant.”
That's a really clever way to kind of think about it, is we hit those inflection points. You will often feel needs or see places to make things better, that exceed your budget or exceed the funds you have. And it's really easy to be sitting as a five-person company and look at a 80-person company and be like, "Oh, that's where I want to be someday." But let me tell you, there's a million decisions about what order and how to get there, between those two, that is a much more interesting conversation than what the end state is, because that life happens in between those two spots.
Traci:
Right. And when we think about funds, sometimes people when they don't build out their org chart or their roles and responsibilities, their accountability chart, whatever you want to call it, when they don't build it out against their vision, they will sometimes add people in a way that feels very traditional without a lot of thought put against it. And then they wake up one day and realize, "How did my profitability stay the same? Like, how did I get to this point where I have all these people, but yet, and all this struggle, and all these personalities to manage and lead and grow, and yet I'm still feeling pretty far from my vision, and I'm still having that same percentage profitability? What's happening? Or my profitability, in most cases, has gone down. And so my, my figure has stayed the same, but my percentage has gone down and that's not what we want."
So it's all just a percentage in the end. It doesn't matter how many people that you have. So this goes back to the point of, man, if you're listening to this and you are on the smaller side, this is gold right now because a lot of people are learning this retroactively and they're trying to fix the situation they're in.
But if you're just growing, the act of sitting down and thinking about your vision, and then sketching out an accountability chart against that vision and how you want to grow, and knowing the order of the people you want to add, in what order, for other companies looking at your chart, it might not make sense. Like, "Why would they add this type of person, a strategy before they'd add a dev? Like why would they do..." You know. And that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what it looks like to somebody else.
But, if you have a well-crafted vision that you really believe in and you know that you have the ability, capability, the optimism to get you there, then you need to craft a chart that's going to get you there, so that you... I mean, basically, the big lesson is that you stop. You take a time-out. You take a pause, and you figure this out. You don't let it happen to you. You, instead, take control, and plan for the future you want, not somebody else wants.
And on top of that, you do some self-assessment. You assess where your gifting lies, where you eventually want to get to. You might have to do some dirty work in the weeds now. But what's your ideal role? What are you hoping to grow into? What do you have to do between now and then to get to your role, not just all these other roles you're sketching out?
Announcer:
Hey, Overly Human listeners! Join Rob for the Bureau of Digital’s Studio Operations and Forecasting Workshop online on March 10. Get all the details at bureauofdigital.com.
Rob:
And I think that one of the things that I would absolutely say and try to remind people of, is your instinct today may not be your instinct tomorrow. You're going to grow. You're going to change. You're going to evolve. You are not fixed in time. Don't think your planning can be fixed in time, either. Like when we look at scaling, especially when we look at our businesses, I really do believe that you could only see the next peak or two in front of you. And beyond that it's cloudy.
I remember when we were five people saying that like, "Man, maybe in a couple years, we'll be 10." We were 10 by the end of that year. And I couldn't imagine what a company of 25 people would be. When I was 25, I thought we had arrived and we were the perfect size, and couldn't imagine what 35, 45, 55 would look like because it was too many steps away from my reality in the work I was in.
And one of the interesting things, as I look back, is there are times when I was doing things that put me outside of my comfort zone, that forced me to do things and think about things in a way that fundamentally impacted the way I view the world. My high growth, high adapting periods where doing some of those things were probably slightly outside of my gifting that needed to be done, that I held myself accountable to doing, that I was able to give myself a new perspective and actually help mentor the eventual person who ended up in that role.
I think it's fundamental to the business we became by being the person who was willing to step into some of those places and be like, "Okay, I don't know how I'm doing this. Let's figure it out. I guess this is up to me to... No one else is coming to save me. This is my job. How do what's the path forward?"
Traci:
Right. And I think that's also how we discover what we can do, as well. You know, I mean, it depends on how old you are and how much experience you have and how much you've actually leaned into self-awareness, and truly understand what your innate giftings are. But it's important to remember that we're all born with certain talents and giftings But that doesn't necessarily mean they become strengths. They still need to be exercised to become strengths.
And I always say that about leadership, is that you may not... You know, you probably most likely have seen little spurts of leadership throughout your life. Like you didn't mind being at the front of the room, or you didn't mind being the captain of the football team, or whatever. But you know, when leading a company, sometimes you can feel imposter syndrome. It's new. You're not sure what you're doing. And it takes time to grow into a business leader. And so some things might feel uncomfortable. That doesn't mean you're not good at them, or you can't become good at them.
Some things you're doing, you're not good at. You're not gifted at that. You need to make sure you surround yourself with people who are much better than you. So all this takes self-awareness. It takes self-awareness of knowing what you should be doing and not doing, what fits you and doesn't fit you, and then what your company should be doing and not doing. Where are the gaps?
Sometimes we're going after visions that we have no business going after. And we need to ask ourselves some tough questions and recraft that, and understand. And sometimes when we grow, double in size, triple in size—and this definitely happened for me in the media industry, is we saw that there were people on our team who were great at startups. They were great at the beginning companies. They were scrappy, and they understood what we needed to get the company off the ground. But they were not good, and not comfortable, and not happy, and unfulfilled, when we got bigger.
And sometimes a company outgrows you. Sometimes you outgrow a company. Sometimes you outgrow a role. And we have to be okay with that, okay to know that sometimes there's something new on the horizon for us. Or we create a different role if that's available to us. But that all takes self-awareness. We always need to be checking in with ourself, and with others, to know if we're on the right track.
Rob:
Yeah. Sometimes the people that helped us get here are not the people that'll help us get to where we're going. And I think that is something that so many of us struggle so much with. I know that it's a lesson that I've had to learn several times over, is that the right person for a role is context specific to where we are at, at that point. And where we are going, it might evolve in a way where that person is no longer the best fit, or no longer lines up with where we need to be doing.
And that's one of the hardest things, because I think this gets back to the previous episode about teams and families can get messed up into this. But it's about comfort. Like this person helped us get and achieve here. And, that's great, if they're evolving along the same lines as the company's evolving and is still headed in the right direction. But there's a possibility, they're not. There's a possibility that their best fit is to go elsewhere.
And one of the things I've noticed is, anytime that's happened, where I thought a very key person was moving on, we were able to put somebody else in their shoes that lined up exactly with where we were and what our next step was. And they may not have had all the history, or whatever, but they were the right person for that new context. And I think that's a huge part of all this, is just realizing that, if everything is evolving together, that there are times when things start growing apart. And that's okay and natural in life.
Traci:
Yep. It's completely natural. But the thing is, we don't realize it unless we're doing this type of work. And that's why pulling out your chart, listing out what the roles that you need for today, and for tomorrow, even if you can't fill those roles, what are the skills? What are the responsibilities? What are the aptitudes? What are the qualities that we need in that role? And then, if the person sitting in that current chair doesn't have those abilities, capabilities, qualities, aptitude, then therein lies the rub and we're able to say, "Oh, huh, that's interesting."
But, if we have something that's really well thought out, we can ask ourselves the hard questions. Can this person grow into that role? Is there something we need to do to help provide them with the skillset? Do we need to hire out? Okay, when we're hiring, let's make sure we have the right questions, we're giving the right assessments to figure out if that person fits this role.
So there's work, and there's time involved in this. But, man, it will save you a lot of heartache, money, and all of that, on the back end, and, most importantly, will help you reach the vision that you're hoping to get to and that you've so well crafted. And I think that's the beauty of this type of work.
And there's a place for everybody in this world. We're all uniquely created. We want people to feel fulfilled in work. We want them, hopefully, to feel fulfilled at our company. But, if not, we hold our staff with an open palm and hope that they can find and help them, in some cases, find a role at another company where they can shine and feel fulfilled.
I mean, the ultimate goal is that we're all fulfilled, happy, growing and contributing to the world. And so sometimes that's with us in this certain role, and sometimes it's with a sister company or another industry, for that matter. I've had people who've used to work for me in media that went off to become school teachers or nurses. And that's all great. But we, as leaders, need to stop holding on so tight to our people or to traditional constructs, and really think broader and bigger about this.
Rob:
Yeah. I mean, I think that's exactly right. And, sometimes, the clear and kind thing to do for people is to have that honest conversation to say, "Things have changed. This is what this role is going to require. We've been working at this for a while. I think it's time for us to go separate ways." And that is one of the hardest conversations you can have with an employee who's been a key player, who's been an important part of getting you here. But they may not be the right person to help you get to where you want to be. Or maybe the role has outgrown them in a certain capacity.
We've had that happen a couple times at Sparkbox, where the roles needed took major leaps and bounds forward. And we had the same person in it. And it became a conversation of like, "This is a mismatch now. And I don't think you're going to be happy taking a step back. So what do we do?"
Traci:
Yeah. It's all good conversations. It does force the owner to sit down with pen and paper and sketch this out. And, if you have a leadership team... We have actually facilitated sessions with leadership teams where it's become apparent in the room at the moment, that somebody on the leadership team isn't quite fitting their role anymore.
And you know, in some cases it's wildly uncomfortable. In some cases, there's great relief because the cat's finally out of the bag, even for the person sitting there. They're like, "Thank God. This..." But sometimes we're able to craft a nice, amazing new role for that person that fits them perfectly and aligns us with the vision and it's all fine.
But these hard questions are what make us better. And you know, these types of exercises, they don't have to long, they don't have to be drawn out. But they do need to happen.
Rob:
Yeah, and they need to be intentional. That's the key part of all this is they need to be intentional. They need to be forward facing. And you as the leader, as the designer of this, also need to have grace with yourself about where you've been, because beating yourself up, or focusing on mistakes of the past, or maybe the right decision that now look like mistakes, doesn't help you get to where you want to be.
Traci:
Exactly.
Rob:
We can't get wrapped up in sunk costs. That is one of the biggest pitfalls that I see over and over again, is like, "Well, I made these decisions back here. So this is where I am." And no conversation drives me crazy the same way of like, "Yeah. Who cares?" Like you are where you are, but what's the next right thing to do?”
Traci:
What’d you learn from that? Take that good bit and move on.
Rob:
Yeah. And just keep doing that. Keep striving towards where you want to be and what the next right step is, and eliminate complexity and try to make things simpler as we go along. And if we do those two things, usually, as long as they line up with our mission, vision, and values, we'll get to a better spot to then make another decision.
Traci:
Good stuff.
Rob:
Yeah. Thanks, Traci. I appreciate it.
Traci:
Thank you.
Announcer:
The Overly Human podcast is brought to you by Navigate the Journey andSparkbox. For more information on this podcast, or to get in touch with Traci or Rob, go to overlyhuman.com. If you like what you've heard, subscribe and tell your friends to listen. Thanks.
