This article discusses the issues in organizing and managing a business and an employee team in a home-ran organization. I call it "Back to Basics" becuase rather than covering new ground in management policy, I review some of the main aspects of running a business.
Contrary to the common conception of a home business, some businesses only use a home as a base of operations and may have teams of 10 or more people that actually work for the company. In these situations, hiring and managing the team can be especially difficult. Since the manager can't literally oversee the team, the management must be ran indirectly through output and team meetings.
Since this is Chicago, I'll use a model that everyone is familiar with: snow removal. My family wakes up on January 2nd, 1999 to find the driveway (and a rather large one in my opinion) is covered with eight to twelve inches of snow. It was still snowing rather vigorously at the same time. I volunteer for the formidable task and get to work, just like I started Meshes Company by myself. With a snow-blower, I am working away, going back and forth, but as you can imagine, snow was covering my tracks and blowing back at me as well. Also, the snow was piling up high enough that I would have to go over the same foot two or three times.
So I "hired" my brother, George, for assistance. Immediately, I made a mistake. He had done this before and so I assumed that he would go get a shovel and take another area of the drive or at least get broom and sweep the stairs. Instead I saw him standing there and I didn't instruct him. I go to work and in two minutes, he's disappeared. I go inside to find him watching TV, telling me that he got cold. So I tell him he has a choice: get warm working the snow-blower or get really warm working a shovel. He takes the snowblower. That's the first lesson: Just because someone has done a job before doesn't mean that they can do it without any instruction.
So he's going back and forth, up and down the drive and I go into the garage and look at the selection of shovels. I have three: a garden shovel, a snow-shovel about 18 inches wide and a snow-shovel about 24 inches wide. You and I both know a garden shovel would be a poor choice for snow-shovelling. I was glad that I had two snow-shovels to choose from. Thats's the second lesson: Have the right tools for the job.
So with the wide and the narrow snow-shovels to choose from, I had some options. I looked at the job ahead of me. I could plan on at least an hour of work, entirely strenuous labor. I could choose to work harder but faster on the wider shovel, but then I would get tired very quickly and probably wouldn't actually produce as much. I chose to work with less snow (and a lighter amount) with the narrower shovel. That's the third lesson: Look at the big picture and choose the tool that would best fit the job and your capabilities.
So I started on the area where my family parks the cars as my brother continued on the drive. Soon, however, I noticed that he would need continuous instruction. He was throwing snow towards an area I had already done and towards the area that I was currently working on. I told him to point the shooter towards the lawn and away from the drive and I shovelled the snow that he threw over the area already done. This illustrates the fourth lesson: Continuously manage your crew so that they don't inadvertently undo eachother's efforts.
Finally, we were both performing well and the snow was being removed. Unfortunately, the problem with the snow piling higher than the blower could handle was still occuring. The blower would push half of the snow into the area on the side that he had already done. My bother would do a row of blowing and then two runs of fixing before he would attempt a new row. I saw this and started following behind him, picking up the snow that the blower pushed to the side.
This was working nicely. My brother was clearing up the snow quickly and I was catching the rest. Neither of us were tiring to exhaustion. However, the snow was gathering higher and higher. It wasn't very long before the snow was three feet high. Now the snow blower could no longer handle the snow efficiently and he would go over the same area repeatedly. I saw a sloution and jumped in front of him. Moving my efforts to picking off 6 inches layers of snow from the top, he could now return to normal operations. This was a fifth lesson: Sometimes, you can save time if you redirect your efforts towards managing the "set-up" or "clean-up" and allowing your strongest position (usually being the one that brings in the money or performs the best) to work on its level rather than lowering the production capabilites of your lead producer.
Now, I was running double duty: pulling snow from the high drifts and cleaning up behind him. I was tiring quickly and the snow was still growing. I slowed dowm and George had the same problems as before. He shut off the snow-blower, telling me that there was just too much and the blower couldn't handle it. I agreed and noticed that he had taken the initiative to notice the problem and find a solution. He returned the snow-blower to the garage and pulled out the other shovel. I wish all "employees" could be that intuitive. Well, he had just reaffirmed that lesson about using the right tools.
With one small area left, he worked on the far side with the lower snow (good thing since he had to work with the wider and heavier shovel) while I took the high bank. I noticed that he was covering more ground than I was, even though I am a lot bigger than he is. He replied that I was removing more snow though, because my area was twice as tall. I realized the next lesson: You must look at production from several aspects since the raw numbers of the main consideration can be misleading.
We finished the job in one hour and forty-five minutes, fifteen minutes faster than I had expected. I believe this was due to foreseeing the needs of the job both beforehand and during operations, and continually being diligent to changing needs.
Let's review the lessons I learned from the snow removal task:
By foreseeing issues before they come up, you can save time and money. By making an effort to solve problems before they happen, you will be more organized and perform more than if you're continuously putting out fires.
Gee, now I wish that I spoke American Eskimo so I had more words for "snow." I've been left feeling like I need bigger thesaurus.