A Cure for Growing Pains
Last night, my husband and I met his family for what we thought would be a nice quick and quiet meal at one of Indy’s casual dining steakhouses. Our waitress was very friendly, took our order, and brought our drinks fairly quickly. Then, it happened. Or didn’t happen.
We waited. And waited. And waited. Long story short, we were able to track down the manager and his explanation of our two-hour experience was “growing pains”.
What company hasn’t experienced growing pains? Absolutely understandable! What wasn’t understandable was his method for taking on these growing pains (not greeting customers, allowing cold food to be served, no empowerment of his wait staff to give free appetizers or desserts to customers who have had a poor experience, etc.).
At inSourceCode, we have been blessed to experience some growing pains ourselves (after all, growing pains only come when you’re… growing. As Jayson mentioned in his last post, this time last year our team was just the daring duo, Matt and Jayson. From that place to a 9-person team, there have been think-you’re-having-a-heart-attack type of growing pains.
From our experience, here’s the cure we’ve found to best heal growing pains:
1. Recognize where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Can you do it is not important. Will you do it is important. If not, hire someone who not only will do it, but loves to.
2. Hire slowly. Don’t rush into shoving a square peg in a round hole just because you need help. Spend time and energy finding someone who will help take your company from good to great with little or no help from you.
3. Make your company remarkable. If working at your company is a fun place to be, people will want to work there. When people want to work for you, your customers can tell (and vice versa).
4. Lastly, communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate with your team. Communicate with your customers. Communicate training opportunities. Communicate successes. Communicate failures.
At the end of the evening, the manager was gracious enough to take care of the entire bill for our table, which sufficed as a cure for his growing pains. Had he taken a little more of a pro-active approach, the entire situation could have been skirted and his business could have still recognized a profit.
What type of growing pains are affecting your company or organization? More importantly, what “cures” do you use for growing pains?
-Allison