The Player-Coach Model: Why it Fails During Rapid Growth

Recently I met for two days with a 7-person leadership team needing to level up their plans for growth.

This company has been growing at breakneck speed, from 2-3M to 10M within a couple years.

Not too long ago every client had the owner’s cell. That does not work anymore.

Fast Growth Creates Many Challenges:

Owners of fast growth companies works extremely hard, and this stresses the family life.

Project Managers are asked to become “people and dept” managers.

Systems fall apart and employees feel overworked.

Office Managers cannot keep up with the numbers, creating blind spots.

The list goes on and on.

Everyone Must Change. And Change Quickly.

You could ask, how did this specific company grow so fast?

It happened for the right reasons.

• The company is in the right place at the right time.
• The owner is great at networking and bringing talent on board.
• The company does excellent work and demand skyrockets.

But success causes its own challenges.

All the players on this team have become player-coaches, stretched beyond capacity and even capability.

The person stretched the most is usually the owner.

For this reason, owners must drop their “player” activities and take on the “coaching” activities.

Here is a list of “player” activities:

• Taking leads, from new and longtime clients.
• Being the answer-man for the forepersons.
• Micromanaging the summer schedule and winter routes.
• Solving employee issues directly.
• Working while on vacation.
• Letting one’s phone (text, email) dictate where you put your attention.

“Coaches” do the following activities:

• Show up on time and prepared for meetings (by clearing one’s own schedule).
• Divide your time amongst your leaders; help them develop their areas and people.
• Clarify job roles and address other people’s time management issues.
• Ensure accountability to processes and protocols.
• Hire true dept leaders, especially if no one is promote-able.
• Spread the vision of the future, and then manage by walking around.

Good coaches learn to unplug when they go on vacation, letting their team run the show.

The owner may love what they do (the work itself) but they have to shift their passion to building people and self-sustaining organizations.

Your definition of success must change.

It’s a trickle-down effect.

Key leaders need to change as well if they are going to rise to department and division leader.

And field personnel need to change as they rise up to supervisor and account manager.

Your Challenge – Prepare Your Team for Growth.

It is chicken and egg.

You can grow fast and then develop the team after. Or develop the team first in order to take on growth.

Generally, you will end up doing both at various times of your journey.

Ambitious leaders need to be comfortable getting stretched and stretching others as well.

The company in this story will do great because we accomplished some critical steps when we met in person.

• Increased honesty between leaders.
• Addressed time-management issues head on.
• Outlined roles that must be added and changed to stabilize the firm’s growth.

At Jeffrey Scott Consulting, when we do a Road Map session with a client and his/her team, not all issues get solved in person, but they all get raised.

When we follow up on our coaching calls, we continue to address loose ends and bring accountability to the new Road Map we created.

In the words of professional race car driver Mario Andretti, “if everything seems under control you are just not going fast enough.”

But you cannot be the driver and the mechanic, just as you cannot be the player and the coach.

CARPE DIEM!

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