“Mission focus” to “Maintenance focus”– what got you here and how to go back…

Companies are started by entrepreneurs with a burning desire to change the status quo, a vision for this only the promoter/s have.  They sell their story hard, win customers, recruit employees to their mission and toil hard to turn their dream to reality.  India is home to lots of such entrepreneurs now, who have made this happen and have become the idols for lot more to follow.  Doing this journey is not for the faint hearted but for people who are possessed.  Possessed to win, breaking barriers, and daring to change as situation demands, these promoters have loads of self-belief.

In all the entrepreneurial journey there are multiple phases in an organizational with each phase demanding significant changes and these die-hard winners change their hats to meet this every time.  In this hat changing requirement more often than not the organization turns itself from being focused on mission to being one which is searching productivity increase and bang for the buck.  Before we get to this change let’s look at various phases

1^st Phase Idea to action – A bright idea borne out of customer need gap turns into a product well packaged.  All that is required here is to go tell the world they need it and there you go making conversations, getting your first set of customers, observing them using your idea, learning what to do more and finally converting a protype to a winning proposition.

2^nd Phase Helping hands – Getting missionaries.  The passion resonates with the few and they are willing to get on board to fill in the gaps identified by the entrepreneurs.  These evangelists go about getting things done without complaining and the company is well on its course.

3^rd Phase Expertise & culture change – A winning product, rapid growth brings with it a need for professional employees.  So, you get “been there, done that” guys from varying cultures assembled to put in shape an organization for future. 

4^th Phase Operational efficiency, need of the hour – Experts bring with them their need for space, independence and most importantly their importance.  Organization starts getting pulled in multiple directions and suddenly ‘the cheetah’ starts morphing to an “elephant”.  Decisions take time, resistance take root and information starts being templatized.  The missionaries and the entrepreneur more than ever are spending time resolving internal issues and the zeal to growth gives way to fixing things.

This is the point when the organization is shifting from “mission focus” to “maintenance focus” with all energies right from the top is spent on minuting meetings, follow-up’s, resolving conflicts, all to ensure operations is running.  Can an entrepreneur avoid this trap and can be on a “chasing growth” mode all the time? 

Execution partners is a sure way of avoiding this trap because by nature the arrangement is only results focused and the partners work on solutions and not throwing up problems.  When they do discuss problems, that’s something the organization missed seeing and have to fix it to get a move on. Outsourcing execution happens to keep the companies on growth path and not only to reduce costs.

Now, that we have a fix on “when should you outsource” the next would be “whom should we outsource to”.  Before we get to selecting the outsourcing partner it’s important to clearly articulate what the organization would want to gain out of outsourcing.  The following should the purpose

1. Bring an edge to execution which wouldn’t be possible by doing it in-house
2. Add more value to the process than what the organization could have done it themselves
3. Not letting execution to play catch up with growth
4. Last but not the least leave the organization to focus on growth by taking away from it the operational issues

Execution outsourcing as a strategy is way too serious for the entrepreneur to not participate in from the concept stage to roll-out.  The key here is to look for the right partners.  Things to do for getting it right

1. Arm’s length engagement a definite NO – execution partners are your extended arm so give them the ammunition to succeed
2. Solution providers is your need, not people to execute what you say
3. Share your vision, let them to build on “how to execute it right”
4. Understand the execution business so that you can compensate them right
5. Find time for their performance reviews, here don’t focus only on the KRA’s but what they say from the trenches. Therein lies the next growth opportunity
6. Lastly evangelize execution outsourcing internally within the organization not for saving costs but for keeping the company on “always on growth” mode

Keep checking which mode are you in on a continuous basis and the moment you feel your mind is getting pre-occupied in operations give yourself a whack and go find the Execution partner to handover and enjoy yourself on the Mission Mode.

Team Thinksynq can help you as an Execution focused outsource partner.  Reach out to us and let us get our hands dirty together!

By- Ganesh Mahadevan, Partner Thinksynq