by: Robert Fish | COO
A common challenge many entrepreneurs face is appropriately staffing their fast growth company. The complexity surrounding building management teams, sales teams, back office teams, etc. has much more to do with managing business dynamics than simply hiring more people. The entrepreneur is really working with two major forces: 1) satisfying current business needs and 2) developing new capabilities to drive growth. In simple terms, there are the existing business structures and the future business structures that have to be run simultaneously. The existing business must service existing clients, manage current cash and financing arrangements, work with legacy systems and processes, work within the existing corporate culture, and perform with current employees.
At the same time, the entrepreneur must have a clear vision of what the future company will look like including new markets and clients, corporate capabilities, systems and processes, improved company culture, sales and marketing strategies, and in most cases additional employees.
In essence, the fast growth company leader is always running two companies: the existing and the future. I have founded or co-founded three fast growth companies and have learned that not all of the pieces and parts of the existing or early stage company will have a place in the future company. My experience has been that this dynamic is what makes hiring for fast growth companies so complex. The future company concept is not clearly mapped out from a wholistic perspective and hiring decisions are made without thinking about the fit and performance requirements of the future team. Most hiring decisions are made with only current needs in mind which limits growth and creates unnecessary turnover. I’ll address the process of assembling teams that address the requirement of both current business needs and the future business needs in another post.
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