Why Accountability and Structure Matter
In the world of accountability, only one person can have ownership. When two people are responsible then nobody is accountable. One issue firms struggle with is a lack of clarity regarding the major functions of their growing organization.
When helping clients create a path for continued growth, we step back to determine if the firm is structured to effect discipline and accountability. Clarifying the business structure improves efficiency and drives growth, so look around your company and ask yourself these questions.
Does your team know who is responsible for what?
Are there things that don't get accomplished?
The Need for Structure
The first step in creating structure is to identify the major functions within your firm. At a basic level, every business has a Sales and Marketing, an Operations and a Finance function (shown below). Your firm must then decide how many and what major functions you have in your unique business.
Sales and Marketing - where you go out into the market, create demand and turn that demand into new clients.
Operations - where you build a product or deliver a service or both.
Finance - where you track money flowing in and out of the organization.
In order to consistently grow you must be strong in each! For example, you cannot be strong in Sales and weak in Operations. As a result, you will have new business coming in the front door then going right out the back.
Once you have identified the proper structure for your organization, then the responsibilities for each role are created specifying who is accountable for what. You must define the roles in ways that people understand. For instance, in an RIA firm the Sales Role may look like: Foster New Client Relationships, Drive AUM and Convert Prospects to Clients. For a recruiting firm, the Sales Role might look like: Pipeline Management, Prospecting and Recruit Meetings.
The Result
When a firm is structured properly then everyone can stay focused on the goals to grow and develop the business. This will drive employee satisfaction, retention, as well as organizational performance. Developing structure leads to building a valuable business.