Policy Development When Scaling

Embarking upon a period of growth is always an exciting process. It is a time when the future is full of potential, and the possibilities are seemingly limitless. Additionally, as you scale, new avenues of potential growth open up, avenues that were previously not seen when making plans to scale. It is almost as if the potential for growth seems limited only by time and manpower to make it happen.

Unfortunately, this type of growth is a two edged sword. While there is seemingly an unlimited amount of growth, the potential for problems also seems unlimited. Issues that had previously not been even a remote possibility now have a very realistic problem of playing out. What had seemed to be an era of unlimited potential has not degenerated into an era full of never ending nightmares.

The way to fix this issue is quite simple actually. First, start out by breaking down all of the growth potential into the following areas:

Primary: areas of growth that align with the organizations mission

Secondary: areas of growth that are “spin offs” of the organizations missions

Tertiary: areas of unexpected growth that could be pursued.

Making sure that you get everything properly labeled at this point is crucial. That way, you will be able to get a clear picture of where things stand before moving forward.

Once everything is identified, focus on addressing all of the primary areas first. Make sure that all policies are written/developed properly so that these primary areas of growth have the chance to blossom to fruition. Simplicity here is of the utmost importance. Also, make sure that you really need to have a policy: don’t fall into the trap of having a policy for the sake of a policy. If situations don’t seem very likely, simply rule it out as a possibility so that you can keep your policies streamlined.

When it comes to the secondary and tertiary areas, the most important question here is one of alignment. Do these areas align with the mission of the organization? If the policy you are writing reveals misalignment with the organization’s mission, do not pursue it. Just like tires not properly aligned on a vehicle, having offerings that are not properly aligned with your organization's mission will create quite a few problems down the road.

Now that you have everything identified, craft your policies with these ideas in mind:

Internal: make sure that you protect your core offerings, with all primary and secondary additions being subservient to them.

External: make sure that they help provide clarity for operations.

This might seem a little odd. After all, aren’t policies supposed to provide clarity about operations? Why should this come next and be labeled as external? The reason for this is simple. All growth additions to your business are not the reason why your business became successful in the first place. It is because you offered products to your customers that they wanted to have. Therefore, even offerings that could be labeled core offerings in the future need to remain subservient to your bread and butter.

This careful alignment when it comes to policies cannot be emphasized enough: personally, I have witnessed companies almost go under because secondary additions began to assume greater importance. The tail wagging the dog clearly is not workable, and had dramatic intervention not occurred, the likelihood is that the company would have gone under.

You might be approaching this point of the article and asking yourself the question: was the focus of this article really about policy development? It almost seemed like one focused on growth. This is true, but from the lens of policy development, it can be a very helpful measuring stick. If you are having to craft policies that do not align with your mission, then that is a red flag. If done properly in this regard, policy development that reveals areas that do not align with the organization's mission can be an extremely effective means of keeping the focus on track.