The Wheels on the Bus Can Come Off

Posted on January 17, 2008

CEOs sometimes suffer from insomnia, worrying about the future of their companies. As the bus rolls along, are some of the wheels coming loose? While you’re lying awake at night, ask yourself these key questions.

If you’ve got kids or remember your childhood, you know the song, “the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round”. Perhaps you even heard the tune in your head just now like I did. But if you’re a CEO of a high growth business, you know this song can be a lie. Those wheels might just come off the bus one day, at the worst possible time.

If those wheels do come off, you won’t be at home, lying in bed with insomnia. You’ll be at work, manning the battle stations, and you’ll want insomnia to be able to keep fighting the fires.

Hey, growth is exciting and fun. But the wheels start rattling loose at some very common places, and for some very common causes. They can be fixed ‐‐ at least enough so that the risk of them fully coming off is mitigated.

So as you lie awake tonight, focus your mind on these key questions:

1. Do you have enough excellent managers and executives on staff to manage the work you want/need to do? If not, what can you do to bring them on board and to get them trained quickly? Growing businesses need to be run by teams that are competent and empowered. Too many CEOs tolerate poor performers, then wonder why they can’t build a quality company. Great leadership is critical.
2. Have you been paying enough attention to the construction of tools and systems that make the work efficient? Have you been building platforms of tools that can grow as the business grows? The platforms should be in place a bit before the growth. This way you can quickly leverage your past efforts to accommodate the growth, while not having to spend too much before the growth actually happens.
3. Are you and your team spending enough time doing written planning work, really assessing the future and what the demands on the business could be? If you have no plan, you’re going to feel out of control. And you will be.
4. Do you LOVE operations or someone you have on board in a leadership position that does? Operations types LOVE getting the business to “hum”. Without someone that loves the “back end” of the business, it will always be a stepchild and the wheels will never be far from coming off the bus. Having a sales-oriented CEO, or an engineering-oriented CEO is just fine ‐‐ but fill in with an executive whose passion is operations.
5. Have you allocated real, significant resources to operations? Have you invested in keeping those wheels on the bus? If not, would you consider rerouting some money budgeted for growth to infrastructure? If not, that’s a telling sign ‐‐ maybe you don’t really want a lot of sleep…..
6. Are you growing so fast because you are not charging enough to pay for the infrastructure and personnel needed to prudently run a larger business? A common mistake is to under price during the startup phase.
7. Are you the cause of the wheels coming off the bus? Running a bigger business means that there can be less exceptions and special side deals, and there must be more conformity and adherence to the process. Sometimes the entrepreneur has trouble settling down and letting the company run. They constantly distract their core operating units with new ideas and changes and never let them do their job. But surely that’s not you….
8. Is there enough communication each day and each week so that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing? Weekly one on ones with each of your subordinates is a good idea. Even if there isn’t that much to talk about ‐‐ often setting aside the time allows non‐urgent but important items to come up and be discussed.
9. Are you steadying the ship or rocking the boat? High growth companies are scary, and the growth isn’t always steady. Set a budget one month, then find that sales are in the toilet the next month. Do you chop back the budget immediately, only to find that sales rebound the next month, then you restore the budget? This kind of unsteady, nervous helmsmanship can in itself cause problems that lead to the wheels falling off the bus. Steady as she goes is best. If circumstances are so tight that it makes you nervous, perhaps the growth is too fast, or you need to bring in more resources so an air pocket for a few months won’t shatter your confidence.

Ample sales and high growth always sounds like a blessing, but it is hard work. Recognize that, and invest appropriately so that you can maintain the growth into the next level, and reap the real rewards of a larger, well run organization.

Takeaways:

• The wheels can come off at anytime, but there are certainly ways to minimize the risk.
•  Ask yourself if you’ve invested the time, resources and staff to keep the business sound.
• By their actions or inactions, many CEOs are themselves the cause of loose wheels. Self-assess, and make sure this isn’t you.