Member Article

How to staff an organisation to manage growth

It’s Jobs focus week this week on Bdaily. Here, Carmel McConnell, founder of Magic Breakfast, looks at staffing.

Growing your organization is a good idea right? It shows that you have something worth having, a product, an idea, a social venture that the market has warmed to. But actually changing from the one or two of you with the idea and aspiration to a room full of colleagues who want the same thing, ish, is a whole adventure in itself. So this is to help you with some very simple ideas on how to get the right people to help grow your organization in the right way. How do I know about this? Well, I’ve grown a number of organizations, helped firms and now, as founder of the Magic Breakfast charity, have led triple growth in the past two years. Some history.. When I ran my management consultancy, the growth curve was very neat, market driven. Clients wanted advice on how to lead change, so I’d help them and provide more people with expert advice as the need arose. My first book Change Activist was a best seller in this area and the business did really well – on an associate, freelance consultancy basis. I had great colleagues but didn’t need to do their appraisal. Which was cool all round. But then came the big curve ball. While researching the book, I interviewed Headteachers in London, who told me that they had to bring in food each day, as so many children arrived at school too hungry to learn. It seemed incredible – the sixth richest economy shouldn’t have hunger as a barrier to education. Anyway. I started delivering breakfasts to the five schools who took part in the interview – while running my firm. The results were astounding, children who had been coming late, were on time, concentration improved, children were “settled and ready to learn”. So I funded more. And then the applications started flying in and I realized I had to build a food aid charity. And no, I had absolutely no experience, thank you. But my CV said skilled in change leadership, so hey. Magic Breakfast was born. We now feed over 7,500 children every day in 230 schools, and it has tripled in the past two years. A great young man, Alex, and I did everything, until last September. We dreamt of having help to get through the list of fundraising, food deliveries, school visits, press and pr. We dreamt of schools where every child, nomatter what their background, would be able to learn and go on to future success. We dreamt of a weekend off. Just over a year on, we’ve nine people on the payroll, still a small number which I think is good for a charity. And now, given that as a right minded society we shouldn’t have a single child missing their education because of hunger, we’re planning to grow to solve the problem for good. So, as was promised at the start of this article, what is the advice? How do you staff an organization for growth? Well, whether you are trying to get your creative start up going, your new department in line or your family firm out of Uncle George’s living room, I’ve got these simple four principles. 1. Have you got the passion to lead? Make sure you are personally committed to the project, so you really give that team the leadership it needs. That means you craftjob descriptions, the recruitment, the induction, the first fallout, the first triumph. You read their references. Do you want to be there with every individual and share their rise in the organization? Or do you prefer to send the new chap an email when he sits opposite to you? If you are too busy, you can’t grow your firm. Of course you can get some HR advice first, to help. But the growth of the organization is about people who are, if you are clever, cleverer than you and even more dedicated.

2. It’s the purpose, stupid. You cannot staff an organization for growth unless you define the core purpose and can communicate it clearly. You may think growth is based on your magnetic personality, but get over it. It’s the purpose, stupid. So be clear on exactly what the new recruit will do to deliver a missing part of the plan, or else don’t recruit. Unless you are a billionaire playing at business. In which case do what you want, and also please go to www.magicbreakfast.com/justgiving. Make sure you do as Churchill said – leadership is communication. Communicate the strategy, your animating, exciting view really often, really clearly.

3. Connect every role to the core purpose. People who join a charity are generally more excited by noble cause, the making of a better world. That’s certainly the case at Magic Breakfast. But if any new member of the team feels cut off from the core purpose, they won’t be able to give their best work. This is the same in any organization though – you hire talented marketers who know their strategic growth inside out, and instead of getting their input you ask them to take care of updating your website. Communicating the purpose, and the individual connection is how you make the team grow and develop. You will be challenged and changed and believe me, that’s the way you make the world better, faster, stronger (I’ll leave it there). Your new team members are your future. (More on creating an organization rich in purpose in my second book, Soultrader, Find Purpose, Find Success).

4. Get the money right. Know your market values and make sure there is a fair and equal allocation of cash to individual skills and expertise. Don’t cheat on this and don’t have cash favourites. The more accurate and transparent you can be on why your team are paid as they are, the more you save on office politics, crying in the bathroom and very awful team meetings. And did I mention - no appointment is always better than the wrong appointment.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Magic Breakfast .