Your Next CapEx Decision Will Expose if Your Team is With You

Your opportunity and desire to reinvest in the business can be both exciting and nerve-racking. You’ve done your homework with your team of suppliers and feel good about the capex strategy. As you prepare for growth with the latest tech-enabled gear, you’ve reached out to the sales team to confirm their ability and desire to grow – press go and pull that big green business development lever. You’re pleased to hear that they have already begun their efforts to fill the pipe in anticipation of additional capabilities and capacity and everyone is on board.

Your ongoing efforts to pull the team together are beginning to pay off and it’s pretty satisfying. But it wasn’t always that way.

As the company went through the early growth phases, it seemed that all the decisions and sleepless nights were borne by a select few. It was by your design as you knew the others were busy solving the issues of the day, getting the work out and keeping your clients happy. What was developing though was a group of individuals working in the organization without a common playbook. Over time, that became problematic as sales, operations and customer support grew in different directions. This caused friction, drama, missed opportunities and just an overall feeling of ugh! The accounting department reminded you of this dysfunction with every financial report package.

You had decided that change needed to happen. Instead of those select few making the decisions and trying to work “on the business,” you began meeting with the respective department leaders. These sessions allowed the others to weigh in as they viewed many of the situations through different lenses. Their input not only provided you with alternative views and options, but it also allowed them to feel part of the solution and elevated their level of engagement. As difficult as some days were, they seemed to have a bit more spring in their step.

You did this with the ops team, sales, finance and customer support. It was painful at first as delegating wasn’t always your strongest suit. But over time it has paid off and now you have a leadership team that works together well and is motivated to support and deliver on the goals of the business.

If you’ve been down this path before, you’ve experienced the benefits of a unified team. If you haven’t gotten this far yet, I would encourage you to start the process. Don’t wait for your next capex moment to discover your team isn’t aligned. Start building that unified leadership culture today – your next big investment decision depends on it.

Mike Philie helps owners and CEOs in the Graphic Communications Industry validate what’s working, identify what needs to change, and create a practical path forward.

PhilieGroup | mphilie@philiegroup.com | LinkedIn

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