Scaling a Business Means Building the Right Team…. Again, and Again and Again

Scaling a business means constantly assembling the right team for the right time, to support your next step up. Over and over again.

This doesn't always mean hiring new people onto your team, though you will need to do plenty of that.

Assembling the right team for what's next should mean helping team members develop the skills they're going to need in order to excel in new or more specialized roles going forward. It should also mean inviting team members from other business units to bring their skills and strengths to play in yours.

This should happen across the organization, and it's a wonderful opportunity to encourage career growth. I don't know how many times I've told a fellow manager "you should think about bringing so-and-so on to your team. She's been killing it on my team and she could be a real game changer for yours. It may be a career path she's interested in."

You should know from your 1-1's what interests your team members, and what they want to do in the next 5 or 10 years, whether it's at your company or somewhere else. When the need arises to establish a new role with a specialized focus, to support your scaling up, you can use the opportunity to invite a high performing team member to step into the new role and try it on for size. Provide some training, give them support, see what they can do with it.

Sometimes, the organization you need to scale into doesn't align with the kind of organization, or role, that a star team member is interested in being part of. The fit that used to be there may change, as the team evolves and scales. That's okay too, because these team members can take the skills they've developed with you and go scale up and be awesome at another company, and continue to make you proud of them there, and you can find a new game changer.

Which brings me to what's always been my favorite part of being a manager: making a job offer to a potential new team member.

What a privilege it is, to offer an opportunity to someone who's a good fit and ask them to take a leap of faith at being a game changer for your organization! To offer them their own scaling step, in their career and in their life. Offering someone a job is offering them a chance to imagine a new page or a new chapter for themselves, and all that might mean (...a new role, or a better work environment, maybe better pay, maybe a better location or remote flexibility, better vacation time, maybe how it makes life easier dropping the kids off for daycare or meeting a spouse for lunch...).

And what an exciting responsibility it is, to bring them onboard and support them in being the game changer you believe they can be, as part of the new version of the team you're assembling or evolving into — part of the right team, for the right time, for your next stage of growth.