Best Practices for Maintaining Effectiveness and Efficiency, Gazelles management challenges

Maintaining Effectiveness and Efficiency

Source: Survey of Fast-growth Companies by Ivey Institute for Entrepreneurship

The CEOs surveyed ranked the following as "best practices" for maintaining the effectiveness and efficiency of fast-growing firms:

Monitor key accounting-based measures (e.g. → profit, ROI)
Monitor key real-time operating variables (e.g. adherence to schedules). Why the importance of implementing financial and operating controls? Clearly, when the actual measures differ from the target, there is a problem that the → CEO must address. The deviation from expected or normal is the flashpoint.
Determine staff responsibilities. Small firms require few controls to keep their tightly knit → teams operating smoothly. Growth changes all that. Setting clear responsibilities and priorities for → managers and employees help avoid confusion and maintain efficiency as an organization expands. Of course, it ain't easy. Growth CEOs gave poor marks to their ability to execute this practice.

Stay flat. Hierarchy is a foe of fast-growing firms. Growth CEOs suggest expanding the span of control of the top level of management, rather than adding layers to the company.

Provide formal training for all new hires. While → leaders of the "gazelles" scored low on the execution scale, → CEOs from more established firms got even poorer marks. No time. The report suggests that this idea is expensive and time consuming and that's why it's so hard to get accomplished.