Tweens

A client asked me last week “Do you think that companies have a size at which they are particularly difficult to manage?”

Great question, and I think the answer is probably “yes.”

In the beginning, the solo entrepreneur (you) has a single employee… you. The good news is that solitary employee is one of the best that you will even encounter. Driven, willing to work endless hours without overtime, tenacious, problem-solving and totally dedicated to your company.

The bad news is that employee has a rotten and unappreciative Boss; but more on that another time.

Once the company grows large enough for across-the-board redundancy, it typically becomes much easier to operate. You have managers who supervise others in their daily tasks. You hire new employees, who are trained by others. Eventually, others do the hiring as well.

The problem is in between. There is a “no man’s land” that many, if not most, small businesses never cross. Each employee occupies a unique place in the organization, and is difficult to replace. We’ll call these companies Tweeners.

Tweens are girls between 9 and 12 (of 13, or 14 depending on who is defining) commonly said to be “too old for toys, too young for boys.” Tweeners in the NBA are those who are a bit too big to play a speed position, but a bit too small to play the power position. Tweens in Middle Earth were hobbits between 20 and 32 who had not reached full maturity. Tweening in animation is the insertion of frames between two figures to make them appear to morph seamlessly from one to another.

All these analogies can apply to the Tweener company. When you only have a few employees, you teach each one his or her job personally. They have regular contact with you on a daily or hourly basis, making their employment one long, continuous training session. Mistakes are quickly corrected, and new situations are addressed so that the employee can absorb the logic and approach of your problem-solving process.

In the Tweener company, you have too many employees for you to interact with each on an ongoing basis, but too few to duplicate all of your key skills in their multiple brains. There is no organizational memory, other than yours, to fill in the gaps created by natural turnover. Each termination, voluntary or otherwise, creates a vacuum. You have to neglect your daily responsibilities to fill the void, and personally train new person on at least the basics of the job.

Many small business owners attempt to control this by preventing turnover, considering it to be too painful to deal with unless absolutely necessary. That’s slow and certain death. Over time, it leads to a company where key employees are overpaid (because they get regular increases to keep them ‘happy’) and under qualified. Getting a high-performing manager becomes merely a matter of luck.

The owner is shocked every time an important employee leaves, although statistically it is going to happen at least every few years or so. People move, fall in love, get married, have kids, get divorced. Hoping that every hire is “for life” is foolish and unproductive.

Other owners respond to the Tweener dilemma by under training. You may look at a new employee and say “I’m not sure this one is a keeper. I’ll minimize my time with him until I’m sure.” or perhaps you spent a great deal of time teaching the last person all the details of the job, only to lose him anyway. So this time you decide to just teach what’s needed to make him productive, and get back to your daily duties.

Or maybe you are just too busy to do it right.

Regardless of your logic process, either approach leads you onto a slippery slope. Under-trained or under-qualified employees gradually increase the burden of decision making on you. They are the chief reason so many small business owners become permanent fire fighters.

How to you prevent becoming a Tweener organization, or fix it if you are one already?

The most common (and correct) answer is to document your knowledge in a way that others can access quickly and easily. Policies and procedures, job descriptions, checklists, forms, tutorials and FAQ’s are all excellent methodologies, and are usually all too neglected in small companies.

Documentation, however, is a daunting task. How can you do a brain dump of your entire business, and still attend to your other duties?

The answer is like the one to the question “How do you eat an elephant?” (One bite at a time.) You don’t have to do the documentation personally, but you’ll need a logical and organized approach to getting it done.

Start with your best, most competent employee. This will fly in the face of your first instinct, which will be to start with your least trained, most mistake-prone employee. Don’t bother. The effort will be much greater, and the results far less impactful.

Put appointments on your calendar for the documentation process. At first, you will need two a week. The first is to explain what you expect, and perhaps to discuss your view of the employee’s job (or what you think it should be.) The second appointment will be to review what the employee has written. After a while you will need only the review meeting, as the employee begins to comprehend your expectations.

You’ve tried documentation before, without success? The problem usually (you knew this was coming) lies with you. You have to show self-discipline and commitment to the process.

The first and most important contribution to success: Don’t cancel the documentation appointments. They are your expression of the importance of the task. Understand that the employee won’t get it right the first few times, and resist the temptation to take over the process. Let them work through the process of understanding what you expect. Don’t settle. It is far better to get the job done right than to spend time and money on lousy documentation. Remember, this is employee training time, but training time with long-lasting benefits.

Start with the job description, including hiring qualifications, then move on to duties. Avoid the temptation to dive into step-by-step procedures (although the employee may be inclined to start there.) Such documentation is difficult to maintain. Work from the higher level viewpoint to the lower.

So your bookkeeper’s job description includes “oversee accounts payable.” His duties include “log vendor invoices in QuickBooks” and “run A/P ageing report every Monday.” Eventually you may get to “Open QuickBooks, click on reports,” etc. but that is far down the road. Don’t bother with “Stamp each invoice with the APPROVED stamp” unless you are sure that it’s a procedure that is written in stone. Those simple step-by-step tasks are the most easily taught.

When you have one position documented fully, start with another. The first one will take at least a few months. The rest will go more quickly. As each is completed, you will spend less time answering questions and making decisions, and have more time to work on the next one.

And if you have an employee who just isn’t capable of doing it, you already have one answer to what you can do to move beyond being a Tweener.