When people ask me what I do for work, my short answer is this:
I work with CEOs to transform their processes so they can create capacity to scale.
Why is capacity creation important to your business?
No matter what your goals are as a company, none can be achieved and sustained without capacity. The reason why process improvement is powerful to companies I am working with is that it creates capacity.
Capacity creation is the best way to break through a growth ceiling. As the company grows, it reaches a point when what it used to be doing to reach that growth is no longer working. Processes break down.
A joint study by Kauffman and Inc. revealed that roughly two-thirds of the fastest-growing start-ups fail. There are a variety of reasons why start-ups fail but one major factor is that they didn’t have the capacity to sustain their business growth.
Some companies are afraid to sell more or pursue new opportunities. Their people are pushing back because they no longer have the capacity to add more to their plates. The opportunity is there, but they don’t have the capacity for it. This is how vital creating capacity is to maintaining company growth.
Through capacity creation, organizations are able to develop high-value activities and standardized processes. That’s how a company can grow and scale–when its processes are repeatable and predictable. Capacity creation allows an organization to move past its original scope of influence.
Creating capacity must be intentional.
When you create capacity, you carve an intentional space that allows your people to turn their ideas on improving your processes into action.
Creating capacity must be deliberate and planned. You don’t just throw things at the wall and hope they stick. You don’t do fire drills and band-aid solutions in the workplace because your actions must go beyond what is happening at the moment. You are investing in the long game.
At Toyota, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, they have a procedure for process improvement. There is an engine that turns people’s ideas into action. Everyone is supposed to be coming up with better ways to do work. The problem is they’re doing it differently than through a standardized process, which is why capacity creation must be intentional.
Instead of you solving problems and doing processes in random, different ways within the sphere of time you’re working, we are going to carve out a space and say:
This is the space. This is the container. We will make process improvements as a whole to create what we call one-team alignment.
Sustaining capacity requires changing as one.
Strengthening your company’s capacity–its state of readiness and ability to perform–requires paying attention to your daily operations across the entire organization. Focusing your attention and investing in a singular department to make changes does not enable capacity. It restricts capacity.
To create sustained capacity, each action made by an individual must be in tune with the entire organization’s mission. And that can only be done when you make changes as a whole instead of doing it disparately by departments.
Capacity creation is key to becoming a market leader.
When it comes to supporting a start-up or progressing an established company, creating capacity in your business is crucial to maintaining company growth. If your company hits a growth ceiling, it will weaken in the face of competition unless you take deliberative action to build capacity.
Sustaining growth within your company by creating capacity is a sure way to continuously satisfy customers, build your business’s foundations, and surpass your competition from rival companies. Ultimately, capacity creation enables your company to anticipate and respond to market changes but also to get ahead of these disruptions and lead the industry.
In love and respect,
Hilary Corna
