How Patience Powers Long-Term Growth: Optimizing the In Between

More and now.

These are two words heavily embedded in the mind of anyone in business. For new companies, it’s “how fast can we get more customers?” and “how fast can we grow now?”. Countless articles and publications praise companies that have been able to grow quickly. Their ability to accomplish more, now, is revered. Rightly so.

The problem is that when we focus solely on growth, we tend to overestimate the stability of our infrastructure and underestimate the adaptations needed to support new business. We assume our current team and systems are sufficient (and efficient) because they’ve supported previous demand. We neglect to properly plan ahead.

One consistently overlooked area is the state and scalability of our human capital – our employees. When companies grow, added pressure is put on the existing team. Not only must they maintain the same level of performance on their current project, but also be prepared to guide new team members and support multiple projects. How can this be done effectively?

Challenge your team to do things more efficiently in periods between growth.

As leaders, we need to encourage our team to pause, review, and improve. It’s our job to make sure they are prepared and not overwhelmed when things heat up. This is not a call to stop all quests for growth! It’s a suggestion that business leaders balance periods of growth with periods of reflection. During this pause, we are able to strengthen our internal base, in order to better support customers in the long term.

So, where do we start?

Let’s break down what we really need: team knowledge and a means to maximize it. Whether for training or process improvement, preparing your human capital comes down to leveraging the expertise you already have. Since this important know-how is stored in the minds of your employees, it’s a leader’s responsibility to make sure this can be easily accessed and shared.

This may feel daunting, but a systematic approach can lighten the load. Below, I’ve outlined the high-level process we use with our clients here at Lessonly.

Define your universe. What people, positions, or processes are you interested in focusing on? This can include:

• People: Who are your Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)? Where are the knowledge silos? If they left today, would your department or company fall apart?

• Positions: What positions will you be hiring for? What are your ramp-up expectations? What training would best support that ramp?

• Processes: Where do you see duplicate effort in your organization? Where is there uncertainty? What is costing you money, and where are issues coming from? Ask your employees for their input and ideas.

Prioritize your focus. Once you’ve defined your universe, look at where you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck. What will have the greatest impact on your business. This will not only help you focus your efforts, but understand what type of online training software you’ll need to allow this training and content to be created, managed, and maintained. This type of work prioritization has been on the rise in the form of Agile. Primarily used by software development teams, Agile is a practice that helps teams decide what projects are most important to accomplishing the overall goal. The same approach needs to be applied to company content creation. Is a lesson about how to use the office coffeemaker as important as a lesson about product pricing and positioning? Probably not.

Ownership and Timeline. Now that you have identified your priorities, it’s time to decide who will create that content, and by when. In a democratized LMS like Lessonly, SMEs create content for the subjects they know so well. This allows more content to be created, and for more dynamic content to stay up-to-date.

This LMS ‘philosophy’ is supported by research that suggests learners relate better to user-generated content. First-hand employee experiences are more useful to new hires and can help them get up-to-speed and contribute to the team faster.

Communicating the impact. With your plan in hand, it’s important to communicate with your team and get their buy-in. This includes sharing:

• Areas of focus, and the reasons behind that focus
• The desired impact, and the KPIs of that impact
• The plan to realize these changes
• Expectations for their role in the project

Once you’ve gained commitment from your team, you can tie these responsibilities to individual annual performance goals as they align with your company initiatives. Since joining Lessonly, I’ve found our marketing team is invaluable for helping enable our sales and CX teams to clearly communicate Lessonly’s value to customers. Between new product launches and lessons built around how to better sell Lessonly, these types of enablement lessons go beyond simply notifying us that a new feature is available. Instead they provide context as to why it was developed, the value it brings or problem it solves, and why our role in supporting it is important. The end result is that it fills us with purpose and we are motivated to do a great job.

After communicating the project and getting your team onboard, follow the plan you established and presented. Have quarterly check-ins to discuss progress and make any tweaks to ensure the plan is still aligned with your organization’s needs.

Following this process allows you to approach growth intentionally and ensure your foundation from which to build is solid. As existing processes are optimized and knowledge silos are eliminated, your employees will become more efficient and your new team members will have the training they need to get up to speed, perform at high levels, and ultimately support your goals.

Remember: Don’t forget the power of pause!