How to scale team performance without operational chaos.
Team Complexity Grows Exponentially
Imagine a small team of three. Each person knows the other two well. There’s nowhere to hide their individual strengths, weaknesses, and results. Three people, connected by three relationships.
With the next hire, the team grows to 4 people, but the number of relationships grows to 6. With 5 people, there are 10 unique relationships between team members. By the time the team has 10 members, there are 45 relationships, and what worked to keep your team of 3 rowing in the same direction doesn’t work any more.
With complexity comes mess.
Maybe an important ball gets dropped because two people each thought the other was handling it, or you get awkward disconnects between what’s been promised to a customer and what gets delivered.
As your team grows, performance comes from clarity.
Results improve when everyone knows exactly what they’re responsible for, how decisions get made, and what they need to do succeed in their role.
That sort of clarity takes discipline. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, the Law of Entropy, tells us that disorder always increases over time. Maybe a talented new hire takes on new responsibilities before their job description catches up. Someone leaves and their tasks are distributed among the team. Swim lanes and job descriptions become outdated, impractical, or just plain wrong.
Building a habit and a system to keep coming back to a state of clarity and focus is a critical function, no matter whether you’re running a big team, a team of one, or a family business.
You Can’t Score Without Any Goalposts
If you were to ask a business owner to list the three most important responsibilities of any team member, and then ask that team member the same question, chances are you’d get two very different lists.
Without a clear scorecard to know what’s expected and how performance is being measured, people fill in the blanks with their best guess. Sometimes they guess right, but often they don’t.
This disconnect will have obvious effects on the business when it comes to profitability and client relationships. Things take longer, communication is harder, and clients get confused.
The fix isn’t complicated, but it does mean carving out time for some important conversations. What does each role own, and what decisions is each person responsible for? How will performance be measured? What are the Key Performance Indicators, Key Behaviour Indicators, and Key Activity Indicators?
As uncomfortable as the conversations might be, they’ll save time, create real accountability, allow for faster decision making, and prevent dozens of even more difficult conversations down the road.
How to Kill Your Favourite Plant
Brian Halligan, founder of HubSpot, summed it up: “If you want to kill a plant, have two people water it.” Without naming one person to be responsible, either each will assume the other has taken care of it, or they’ll both do it and accidentally drown the plant.
Poorly defined roles is one of the main reasons why up to 70% of business partnerships fail. It creates unrealistic expectations, failure to agree on a plan of action, and a lack of clear communication.
One of the most common structural problems in small and family businesses is the proliferation of identical titles. You get two partners, both called “Owner” or “Co-Founder”, or you see a parent and adult child, both listed as “Director”. Sharing titles helps avoid an awkward conversation about hierarchy, and it feels fair. Unfortunately, it usually creates more problems than it solves.
When two people share a title without defined responsibilities or authority, decisions stall. The solution isn’t to demote anyone, but it’s important to get specific about who owns what. Who gets the final say on hiring? Pricing? Client disputes?
Deciding in advance who owns each task or process in the business means each one gets properly looked after, rather than neglected or drowned by mistake.
Clear and detailed job descriptions (and the discipline to keep roles and responsibilities up to date over time) creates clarity, and clarity opens up performance.
Does everyone on your team know exactly what they own, and how you’re keeping score on their job performance? Does everyone know when they’ve had a great day, week, or month instead of a good one?
If the answer isn’t a big yes, doing some work and having some uncomfortable conversations now will help drive better results through Q4.
And if you could benefit from bringing in an objective outsider to help ask the tough questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.
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