Policy Development for Startups

One of the blessings that being in a startup offers is the opportunity to get things established at the outset. If the business is a success, there is a good chance that a lot of what is being done will be retained as the organization grows into maturity. Such a prospect truly is one of the more exciting aspects of owning a business: looking into the future and imagining the impact of your decisions today.

This brings us to one of the most important things to develop at the outset: policies. Something needs to exist that clearly articulates limitations in specific situations. Guardrails like this will go a long way in ensuring that problems are headed off. They are very good at keeping in line everything from problem customers to proper employee behavior.

While policies hold a great deal of promise in maintaining order, the problem is crafting them appropriately. The biggest killer to a policy is an exception, since that negates the policy in certain settings. Additionally, policies that are crafted in an attempt to rein in poor behavior need to be viewed from the perspective of what will happen in other situations. It is quite possible that this solution that you have developed for this setting might cause issues in other settings.

Take your time creating the policy, and focus on keeping it as simple as possible. The more complicated a policy becomes, the harder it is to be effective. After all, a policy is not a process: it needs to focus on a specific situation. Whether it is equipment or an interpersonal setting, what is important is that  the policy be designed to address an issue thoroughly and clearly.

Will you get it right? Most likely, there will be some policies that might need to be revisited after implementation. Even in the situation where careful and thorough deliberation takes place, things will be missed that require revisiting. This is a crucial reality to accept, since the fear of getting it wrong will cause things to bog down unnecessarily. Sometimes, accepting that the Ready Fire, Aim approach is the best way needs to be accepted. Getting it wrong will happen, but going back and fixing it should always be on the table. There is nothing wrong with going back and revising to get it right.

Along these lines, the reality is that you will need to revisit policies during the start up phase. As things get going and the shakedown phase begins (where you are working out all of the bugs), problems will likely arise that had not previously been known. In this situation, you will need to review your policies and change accordingly.

Probably the most effective illustration on this point is the example of the NFL. Each year, the competition committee will review recommendations for rule changes. The owners will meet and discuss, then vote on which rules that they wish to see implemented. In many cases, these recommendations are done to address problems that have developed in the game. While in some cases they are not the best idea (the committee will review and suggest changes to fix the issues), in quite a few cases, these suggestions will go on to greatly improve the game, giving fans a product that is compelling.

If an entity like the NFL that boasts the largest revenue of any sports league in the world can review its rules and adjust them when they need to be fixed, you can certainly revisit and adjust policies when they are not working properly. Therefore, making a yearly periodic review of your policies should be on the table, not just as you are starting up, but also as you are doing your best to grow your business.