Grow Your Business by Finding Your "Hidden"
Organization
by Pamela S. Harper
Published on this site: April 26th, 2006 - See
more articles from this month
Have you ever wondered what enables some entrepreneurs to
exponentially grow their businesses while others go flat,
or worse? Their secret lies in their ability to find and lead
what I call their "hidden" organization. You may
think you don't have an organization, hidden or otherwise, especially if your business
consists of a "gang of one" or there are only a
few employees on staff. But the fact is that even the smallest
businesses have an organization, and your success or failure
is determined by your ability to find it and then lead it in
a way that gives you more of the results you want.
This may be a totally new concept to consider. It's easy to
think of giant corporations as having organizations. These
are the "internal stakeholders" consisting of employees,
departments and committees on the payroll. However, large
companies are realizing that independent consultants, suppliers,
outsource providers, alliance partners, customers and other
"external stakeholders" also play a critical role
in their organization's ability to achieve high performance
results.
Just as your business is part of your customers' external
organization, it also has external stakeholders of its own
that make up your hidden organization. The better you become
at recognizing and leveraging the power of these many relationships,
the more likely it is that you'll survive unexpected twists
and turns in the economy, minimize problems, and take your
business to the next level of growth.
Who makes up your hidden organization?
It can be challenging to identify the many stakeholders
who impact your business. While some of these relationships
are obvious, it's easy to overlook and underestimate the impact
of others. However, if you think of an external stakeholder
as any person, group or organization that has a stake (whether
they recognize it or not) in the success of your business, your
organization includes, but is not limited to:
- Customers
- Suppliers
- Outsource providers (payroll services, virtual assistants,
etc.)
- Advisors (attorneys, accountants, bankers, business coaches,
consultants, etc.)
- Alliance partners
- Subcontractors
- Competitors
- Business and trade associations to which you belong
- Advisory boards
When you uncover the wide variety of support, knowledge,
skills, capabilities, and resources that are available through
your stakeholders, you can offer services and products in
ways that you may never have considered before. For example,
a specialty-clothing designer with one store location teamed
up with an online distributor so that she now runs a global
business, reaching customers around the world. Even competitors
have found that there are a number of ways to benefit through
limited collaborations. The possibilities for growth are there
if you look for them.
While large companies have organizational charts that map
out functions of departments and roles of employees, you can
also create your own "organizational chart" to map
out how external stakeholders fill essential functions and
roles that are essential for conducting business. For instance,
your accountant, attorney, and insurance agent are important parts
of your "executive team." Your organization also
includes your customers, along with the alliance partners,
outsource providers, and sub-contractors who may work with
you to deliver products and services.
As you continue to identify stakeholders, be sure to update
your organization chart on a regular basis. Depending upon,
your own goals, customers' objectives and needs, new technology
and shifts in the economy, some stakeholders will take on
increased importance while others play a less important role
for a period of time.
Realigning your vision of your organization so it includes
these and other external stakeholders will enable you to think
about new ways to reach your customers, expand your capabilities,
and discover new opportunities for increased revenue and profitability.
Leading and managing your hidden organization. Now that you've
discovered your hidden organization, the next challenge is
to lead and manage it so that you are achieving your growth
objectives.
Clients often tell me that unexpected and persistent problems
seem to come out of nowhere (this is what I call "strategic
gridlock"). However, when we look back, it's possible
to trace the source of problems to one or more common but
mistaken assumptions that we all make about our organizations,
based upon our individual perceptions of reality.
As you lead and manage your hidden organization, here are
three questions to ask yourself on a regular basis to begin
to uncover assumptions, avoid gridlock, and grow your business:
- What is the uniqueness of each stakeholder? Just as no
two people are alike; no two stakeholders are alike. Yet
it's easy to adopt an approach to dealing with others that
doesn't allow for these variations. This can lead to persistent
problems, especially if their values and practices are different
from yours. Understanding the uniqueness of each stakeholder
will help everyone get the most out of each relationship.
- Are my stakeholders capable of doing what I want? Since
external stakeholders have other priorities outside of yours,
unexpected changes in direction can easily happen. Consistent
communication with your external stakeholders minimizes
the risk of being blindsided by these issues, and allows
you to make contingency plans. It also alerts you to developments
that could result in new opportunities for your growth.
- Are my stakeholders willing to do what I want? External
stakeholders don't always share your objectives or sense
of urgency. The more that you understand how they perceive
your objectives and what their needs are in relationship
to yours, the more likely it is that you can head off conflicts,
improve decision making, and negotiate solutions that represent
a "win"
for everyone.
To fully meet organizational challenges and lead your organization
to high performance results, it's essential to know not only
who your stakeholders are, but also what issues they face
and the impact those issues may have on you. When you seek
out the perceptions of your stakeholders on a regular basis,
you'll be able to address any potential challenges from a
position of organizational reality, not individual assumption.
Discover the power of your hidden organization
Many entrepreneurs, especially those who are used to working
as "gangs of one", overlook and underestimate the
many ways that they can leverage and grow their businesses
by working in collaboration with their external stakeholders..
Once you recognize that you are the architect of your own
organization, the issues of leading and managing organizations
of all sizes are the same; the same organizational principles
apply to mega-corporations as well as to solo entrepreneurs,
because even the very smallest businesses have "hidden"
organizations within them.
Harnessing the power of your hidden organization will help
you to discover untapped opportunities, avoid organizational
jams, and grow to new heights of success.
Pamela S. Harper is founder and president of Business
Advancement Inc., and helps businesses of all sizes to accelerate
progress toward their key objectives. She is the author of
Preventing Strategic Gridlock: Leading Over, Under & Around
Organizational Jams to Achieve High Performance Results visit
http://www.businessadvance.com
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