OVERHAULING the MACHINE
Rethinking your business’s
organizational structure
When was the last time you overhauled
your machine (ahem, business)? Evalu-
ating your internal company structure is
likely not at the top of your “To Do” list.
Because really, who has time for that? As
long as you have satisfied customers and
a growing bottom line, everything is good,
right? Well … not so fast.
Maintaining the status quo isn’t always
a good thing – something we realized as
a firm a few years ago. Our leadership
team met with a larger Midwest account-
ing firm that is similarly structured
to ours. Their team walked us
through the changes their firm
had recently undergone in an
effort to leverage its leadership
talent, streamline business pro-
cesses, maximize resources and
operate more efficiently.
The light bulb went off. Was it time
for us to look at our own leader-
ship and structure to see where
we could better leverage our
talents? Indeed it was. So our
team began gathering ideas and
charting out a roadmap for how
we would evaluate our people and
adjust our organizational structure to bet-
ter align with our desire to grow as a firm
and maximize the talents of our people.
The following are tips we learned along
the way that can help you evaluate and re-
consider your own organization structure
as well.
5 Tips for Evaluating Your
Organizational Structure
1. Get out of your office and meet with
other business owners. You’d be sur-
prised how much inspiration and new
ideas you can gather by getting out from
behind your desk and meeting with other
leaders. Attending industry conferences
is a great way to meet other business
owners outside of your local region. Who
knows, you may gain knowledge from
someone on the other side of the country.
14
3. Gather ideas, let them germinate
and evaluate leadership skills. Before
hastily making any changes to your busi-
ness’s organizational structure, take time
to gather ideas and mull over them. Con-
sider your business in its current state
and think through the pros and cons of
making changes. What could work? What
wouldn’t work? And then look at the lead-
ers in your business and assess their
skills. There are lots of skills assessment
tools out there that can help you evalu-
ate your existing leaders while identifying
those who are up-and-coming.
4. Ensure that any changes you
make will align with your busi-
ness’s mission and goals. Don’t
make organizational adjustments
without considering your busi-
ness’s mission and goals. The
changes you make should
support the business’s direction?
Be sure everything is in alignment.
2. Create a board of advisors. You
work in your business 24/7. A fresh set
of eyes can help bring perspective to
business challenges and can help you
look for areas of improvement in your
leadership structure. Be sure to engage
outside advisors who will tell you what
you need to hear, rather than what you
want to hear.
business
the
of our
By Lee Beall, CPA,
executive vice president,
[email protected]
(Dublin office)
business
5. Periodically, reassess as nec-
essary. The changes you make
now might not be relevant or
might not work later on down the
road. Continue to reassess your
organizational structure periodically to en-
sure that your business continues to run
efficiently and effectively.
As a business leader, part of your stew-
ardship obligation in running your orga-
nization is thinking ahead and raising up
the next generation of leadership. Does
your current organizational structure
support the eventual transition of leader-
ship to the next generation? If not, evalu-
ate your organizational structure today.
Contact a Rea business consultant for
more information.