Check your pace
Growth is a good thing, but like all
good things, it needs to be done in moderation. Twardowski says you can have a
great deal of control over the pace at
which your company grows.
“I think I can control the growth on an
annual basis,” Twardowski says. “That
doesn’t mean that I’m controlling every
opportunity. It means that I have built the
team who understands my expectations.”
The key is to have a clear idea about
what pace you want your company to
grow at and to communicate that plan to
your employees. Determining pace comes
down to asking yourself a few questions.
“Does your organization have the proper infrastructure in place to absorb the
growth, and does it have the infrastructure in place without having to put the
cart in front of the horse,” Twardowski
says. “Are you going to have to invest
significantly in the infrastructure to support the future growth? Are you going to
be able to sustain your culture and values systems with the added revenue and
employee base?”
To answer those questions, you need to
create a system where company data is
being tracked on a regular basis. Whelan
uses a scorecard system that keeps track
of various items month by month.
“We are constantly feeling the pulse of
the growth and the pulse of change within the organization,” Twardowski says.
By maintaining a read on your company’s key metrics, you can provide clearer
direction to employees and, in the
process, ease the fear of the unknown
with employees.
“People struggle with change,”
Twardowski says. “I’m leading an organization that is growing at a fairly significant pace. With change comes growing
pains. It’s managing the change and then
it’s managing those growing pains while
simultaneously trying to keep your culture and value system, which really shouldn’t change, intact.”
Part of the process to keep that system
intact is making good decisions about
when to hire and how many people to
hire during times of growth.
“If you are going to build for growth in
the future, you can’t maintain unsupported overhead or you end up with an
organization and an infrastructure that
becomes complacent,” Twardowski
says. “You have to be constantly trying
to stretch the organization. If you are
constantly overstaffed, you eventually
have an organization built on complacency and it does not expect to have to
work as hard.”
When a company loses control of its
growth, the results can be very damaging.
“The foundation upon which the company was built and the trust you established with your consumer or your customer is very quickly eroded over a 12-to 18-month period if you can’t catch up
to provide the proper infrastructure to
support the growth,” Twardowski says.
Whelan grew about 31 percent last year
and hopes to grow by about 24 percent
this year. Twardowski says that most
business analysts consider 20 to 30 percent growth manageable.
“I certainly could be growing faster,”
Twardowski says. “But the foundation of
the company wouldn’t be as strong. All
business isn’t good business. All growth
isn’t good growth. My belief, and it’s a
belief that is published often, is that
growth over 50 percent or growth in the
range of 50 percent to 100 percent,
which is termed hyper growth, can actually choke out an organization and
choke out future growth.”
Like a good house, Twardowski says it
all comes down to the foundation.
“If your company does not start with a
solid foundation built around a culture
and a solid foundation of business values
and core values, regardless of instructions given to employees at any level, it’s
hard for them to understand how they are
expected to act and/or perform on a daily
basis,” he says. “It’s just the foundation
upon which the rest of the service delivery model is delivered.”
HOW TO REACH: Whelan Security, (888) 4-WHELAN or
www.whelansecurity.com
