If you’re like many small business owners, managing a team may not be your strong suit. You may be passionate about your business or industry, but may lack the necessary leadership skills to keep your staff in line and productive. If you’re busy running your company, you may not notice serious issues in the office that are influencing your business’ productivity and success until it’s too late. These problems will only grow if you don’t deal with them as soon as possible.

Back office dysfunction comes in many forms, including:

• Gross inefficiency at getting work done
• Lack of documented processes
• Poor communication with the team
• Personality conflicts among employees that affects their ability to work

The key with dysfunction is identifying the behavior immediately and addressing it in a professional and effective manner.

Step 1: See Your Office for What It Is

This can be a challenge when you’re mired in it, day in and out. Stop for a moment and assess your entire business. Are there clear roles for your team that everyone understands? Is your office running as smoothly as it should be, or are there bottlenecks that are keeping your business from being its most productive? What does your staff continually come to you to complain about?

Make a list of the concerns you (and your team) have, and prioritize those that affect your customers to deal with first.

Step 2: Get a Plan

Each issue needs its own solution. Schedule regular staff meetings to stay on top of things. If your business processes are inefficient, brainstorm with your staff on where the roadblocks are and how you can circumvent them. Investigate what you can automate. If you do a task more that 3 times, it can be automated. Go do some homework to see if you can leverage technology to solve any key issues.

Step 3: Assign Ownership

Remember, while you are the business owner, you aren’t necessarily the one who needs to fix each problem. Engage your team in finding solutions. Find the most appropriate person to solve the issue or hire a coach. If your sales processes are broken, your head of sales needs to own the problem (as well as get your input) or perhaps you should invest is sales training for your team.

Step 4: Get Out of Your Own Way

If you genuinely care about your business’ success, set your ego aside when necessary. Realize that if management isn’t something that comes naturally to you, be willing to step aside and hire an experienced manager to help you. I had to do this in my business. I realized that I was still wearing too many hats, and I couldn’t be my best where it really counted due to all the constant multitasking.

Step 5: Assess Results

Once you come up with a solution for each dysfunction, follow through with a 30/60/90 day plan to fix it and to make sure the solution actually worked. Three months after you solve a problem, measure results to see if it’s truly improved. Talk to the employees involved in the solution to see how they feel about it, and take their feedback seriously. If it’s time to go back to the drawing board, do so.

Step 6: Keep Your Eyes Open

Now that you’ve cleared out some of the issues from the office, don’t let the cobwebs build back up. Pay attention to red flags. Be diligent about observing what’s going on in every corner of your office so you can spot troublesome weeds before they really sprout.

The sooner you address bottlenecks and obstacles to your business, the less they impact your ability to deliver quality products and services to your clients.

“A Waste Paper Bin” courtesy of Mister GC / www.freedigitalphotos.net