The first few months of a new year is an ideal time for a company founder to make sure the business is ready to climb to the next level of success. That is not an easy task and, for planning firm owners, it may require taking some time away from daily business operations. But the potential payoff is worth the effort.

THE GROWTH PROCESS

In the world of financial services, advisory firms grow through the talent, drive and energy of their founders. Each firm's character is determined by the entrepreneur's inclinations, style and experience, creating a driven, dynamic environment, based equally on ambition, energy and potential. As firms grow, their founders face the challenges of imbuing them with their energy and vision, creating business structures that deliver high-quality services, adding staff to support growth and systematizing services to allow for scale and growth.

But just when firms have grown to a point that they need staff, systems and scale, their founders are overwhelmed in managing it all and struggling to keep up, much less to do the extra work of working on the business. In this atmosphere, there is never time to build the business. Running the business distracts you from growing the business, and working in the business distracts you from working on the business.

Also, owners continue to work in almost every aspect of the firm, as they did when it began. To this end, an owner has filled every business capacity - executive, manager, professional and staff. When the firm expands, the owner hires and hands off specific tasks to others, but remains the controlling force over all aspects of the business.

This overwhelming control that the owner exerts over the business may become disruptive to the office as firm members begin to independently develop systems and procedures in order to complete tasks without the owner's involvement.

As the owner tries to keep up with a growing business and firm members attempt to establish their own informal systems for doing work, the owner often experiences a sense of loss of control. The firm seems to be growing beyond the ability of a single person to control it; the owner can find herself or himself chasing the business instead of managing it - an incredibly frustrating and exhausting experience.

SOLVING PERSONNEL ISSUES

As a firm expands, personnel may be hired in an informal manner based on the demand of the workload and outside of the context of a well-thought-out organizational structure. Difficult and costly staffing issues can arise in these circumstances. Some common personnel-related problems include:

* A revolving door. If there are no systems in place to govern work, turnover can cause problems with workflow and quality. Without systems in place, employees create their own informal practices through trial and error. These practices allow the employees to do work, but if an employee leaves, the informal practices leave with him or her. The next hire needs to create new practices in order to do the work, leading to inconsistency and inefficiency during the transition.

* Hiring and firing issues. Hiring issues stem from a lack of clarity about the positions needed for the business to run optimally and a lack of systems during the hiring process to assure that the best possible candidates are hired. Hiring issues can lead to a revolving door situation if the wrong people are hired.

Firing issues stem from a lack of review processes and procedures. Employee review should include regular formal reviews, monitoring of work through accountability procedures and documentation of issues. Without proper documentation, if problems worsen with an employee, the firm may find itself in a difficult legal position.

* Culture issues. Your firm's culture is the atmosphere created by the way firm members interact. The best firms have a team-based progressive culture. When a firm has problems with personnel, morale problems can result, leading to a decrease in efficiency that can be self-aggravating. Culture issues can be difficult to overcome, since negative feelings feed on themselves.

PRODUCTION AND QUALITY ISSUES

Without systems that govern work, production and quality issues become magnified as a firm grows. Employees are too busy doing work to create better systems, or they are micromanaged by owners who want to let go, but can't. When problems with quality or service occur, it can be frustrating both for the owner, who wants to provide high-quality service, and for staff members, who can feel overwhelmed or resentful of the owner's micromanaging style.