My/Our focus when in charge of an SME
In SME companies the role of owner or shareholder and the role of general management (individual or collegiate between partners or members of a family) is usually taken by the same people. Being an owner or shareholder represents a non-protagonist role for the management of the business, however occupying the general management determines the destiny of the company.
We would expect from a general manager that his management “produce new wealth and value constantly” and management “limited to sustaining and managing what was generated in the past” would not be acceptable.
Based on this introduction, how should we allocate our time when exercising general management to respond to the FOCUS of our management?
The answer is 50% of our time to Business Development, 30% to Coaching the team of the company, and only 20% to the involvement in operational issues.
Many times, in the case of “an owner in the exercise of general management”, the dedication to the operational aspects ends up taking 90% of the total effort for not properly interpreting what is the precise content of what is considered Business Development and Coaching of the team of collaborators.
Developing the business means being aware of the trends that condition the evolution and the result of the activity in which our company operates, being present in the “places” in which these trends manifest in order to identify them. This does not occur “inside the company”.
The ecosystem of variables requires time to be in contact with customers, inputs and new technologies suppliers, analyzing the behavior of the competition, knowing the evolution in other markets and the opportunities / threats that allow us to anticipate, understanding the times of the economic cycles and macroeconomic signals. In other words, dedicating time to what at most and in a partial way can be shared but not delegated, and that if we do not take it as the center of our effort nobody will do it.
Carrying out the Coaching of the company’s team also requires time and effort and is the way to make believable the DNA that we want to characterize the culture of the company and that has so much to do with its performance. It is not enough to specify the expected behaviors through human resources policies. You must transmit them in contact with people, constantly and with conviction.
In practical terms, the contents of this Coaching convey the ideology with respect to the value obtained by the vocation to response speed, the respect in the attention of the clients, the cost monitoring, the incentive to the innovation and creativity, the importance to comply with procedures, quality and safety standards, the value of teamwork through the integration of sectors and the development of talents so that they can take on new responsibilities.
This necessary time of coaching and often underestimated (or replaced by the distraction of operational work) should also extend to the entire external ecosystem that is integrated into the company to produce or generate goods and services for our customers.
The FOCUS on the management of the SME appropriately allocating the time to devote to Business Development, Coaching the human ecosystem of the company and finally to operational tasks is a behavior that brings us closer to the value of the general management role.