Expansion brings excitement, challenge, innovation, change to list but a few words. It might mean more product, wider and deeper services, perhaps greater specialisation to attack niche markets. It might mean expansion outside traditional markets. Whatever type of expansion you are looking at, one thing is for certain. You will need to bring new people on board. But more than that, you will need to put strategies and systems in place that will help you manage your expanding team to best effect. This article focuses on the people aspects of expansion and offers advice to MDs looking to improve their team expansion management skills. Building a picture of the future First off, it’s essential to map out your future team needs. Start by creating an organisation chart for your future business. At this point don’t include named individuals. Focus on the roles you perceive are needed to enable this expansion to take place. Taking names out of the equation for the time being frees you … [Read more...]
How coaching can support leadership change in a small business
Coaching might be seen as the new buzzword of the age. It has come to cover a multitude of interventions – consulting, training, educating, advising, mentoring, therapy, counselling and so on. For me coaching is about engaging with the whole person to achieve the outcomes the business is looking for in a sustainable way. This first blog is to unpick that last sentence and explore how that fits in to succession planning in an SME environment. “Engaging with the whole person” means working with the rational and emotional sides of the brain. My client may or may not know what to do. Any knowledge gaps can be identified through coaching and a plan developed for further training and education outside the coaching relationship. That is relatively straightforward particularly if the person is motivated to succeed. The emotional aspect is just as important. I would be asking such questions as: How does the person really feel about the new opportunity (in the context of succession)? What … [Read more...]
Are new business support provisions fit for purpose?
The Government is in the forefront of encouraging new business support provisions for SMEs. It has reorganised Business Link and done away with the local one-to-one advice provided from trained advisors and replaced them with a website. In a recent Forum of Private Business (FPB) poll only one in ten of the respondents indicated that the support provided was adequate while 20% said it was not. Further, more than half thought that the information was inadequate to aid growth. Mentoring and coaching now appear to be favoured by government as the best way to support SMEs and are supporting organisations and individuals who give their time free of charge. However some restrictions are placed on what they do. This means for instance that coaches cannot give advice! Whilst there are, no doubt, many good people providing good support amongst these organisations, the overall quality of these coaches and the services they provide may not suit the majority of SMEs seeking practical help and … [Read more...]
UKBA response to Government mentoring programme
As one of the UK’s leading advisors to SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises), UK Business Advisors (UKBA) initially expected to register and become a core part of the new government initiative for mentoring to small business owners. Whilst it is expected that some of UKBA’s mentoring specialists will join the scheme individually, having carried out a full investigation of the government’s proposals, UKBA as an organisation has decided not to become part of the initiative for two main reasons. The first is that the terms of the mentoring programme are all about mentoring and specifically excludes giving any actual business advice to a business owner. Whilst non-specific personal mentoring may be of help to some business owners, in the experience of the over 100 UKBA advisors, actual practical hands–on help specific to that business is far more valuable. UKBA feels that preventing advisors providing advice is not in the best interests of businesses. The second reason for not … [Read more...]
