ISSUE FOUR: OWNING UP TO OUR ECOSYSTEM
Buckle up… we’re in for another ride with this month’s newsletter. It’s full of layers, and we’re keeping the complexity ball rolling because (JIC you hadn’t already noticed) all of this is about what me and my clients are facing NOW.
Last month’s newsletter, The Return of the Expert, dove into how imperative it is that WE, as creative entrepreneurs, hone our expertise. No more bullshit. Every idea ISN’T truly viable, if we’re being honest. Indulging whatever the latest creative compulsion happens to be, or just dropping everything to chase whatever shiny thing flits across our paths/screens—it ain’t working, anymore. The world has changed, and our worlds along with it. Last month's newsletter (#2) was a call to action to own your creative identity and dig deep into focused craft and work.
Buuuuuuut this month’s is a little different. We aren’t going to talk about craft, per se—because as important as it is, I am observing that often that part gets the bulk of our attention, and certainly is what we as creatives want to prioritize. Perhaps because it’s where we get to stroke our egos? Most of my clients are experts at their craft (so long as they stay in their lane;) but strategy and operations? Not so much. Or the people management side of scaling, either. Not necessarily great at taking responsibility for how the businesses we build actually run—with integrity, according to our visions. This is the BUSINESS part of the business, not what possibility our next captivating creative idea might contain.
Just like honing our craft, the business part of our businesses requires diligent practice, continuous attention, and even… curiosity. I’ve said it before, but a beginner’s mindset, maybe? After years of consulting and advising, I gotta tell ya—most often, these necessities get relegated to fantasy-land: someday, a unicorn director of ops might Mary Poppins up in here for non-competitive pay and save the day. OR it just gets ignored altogether, pushed to the side when other responsibilities—personal and professional—come calling/start screaming.
So let’s start with a big one: staffing. It’s consistently the thorniest area I help clients with. This may seem obvious, but your creative endeavor ain’t a business if your operations aren’t working, and you can’t scale a business that aint working—especially if you’re perpetually stuck in a cycle of HR issues. People management, organizational/operational structure, and administrative oversight overwhelm MOST small business founders, and the reason why is: ego. Now, hackles down, bear with me: ego as in overindulgence/overcommitment regardless of capacity or capabilities, believing every idea is brilliant and absolutely a rocket ship, and that all inbound opportunities are legitimate and necessary to jump on. I’m coming to believe the opposite is true, for all these things—we need to cool it. We need to up the discretion. We need to apply some better judgment before jumping in to hiring, expanding lines, or signing new deals. Stop indulging ourselves ALL THE TIME, basically.
There are a LOT of reasons why I’ve taken this perspective, but mostly it’s the zeitgeist/paradigm shift of generational change, right now. Particularly the conundrum of hiring and managing the next generation of staff.
This matters, because usually the staff my clients can afford to hire are young or entry-level or both. A lot of this comes down to financial bandwidth—the margins aren’t there, to pay at high levels, or it’s ruinous to try—but even if there’s PLENTY of money, the hiring procedures and training processes aren’t there, and so we hire poorly. Ever heard the saying hire slow, fire fast? Founders OFTEN get backed into corners where they’re hastily onboarding inexperienced, low- or no-skill staff who need livable wages and survivable benefits, as well as org structure, policy, and procedure to make their investment of time and effort and loyalty pay off over time for themselves sure - but you and your business mostly.
I often find myself mitigating utterly unrealistic expectations from entrepreneurs wistfully hoping for intrepreneurialism from their low-paid, benefits-free workers. If they had that kinda sauce, they’d be starting their own business to compete with you, plain and simple. This is a compound (if not chicken/egg) problem: it’s obvious our clients and consumers don’t want to pay more, so how can WE pay more?
Here’s where I’m at, in no particular order. It’s what I think you all need to be chewing on, too. Some of this might be a lil’ controversial, so read on with caution.*
What happened to mom-and-pop (gross, but also seriously) small businesses that support one person, or a single family’s lifestyle? Be it the X-marts or dying local services, small-scale successes like these keep getting rarer. The macroeconomic policies that have spanked the small scale, the American-made not only killed our mainstreets, but made localized service and retail work shameful, instead of high value and revered—like it should be. (SHOP LOCAL, SHOP SMALL:) But also BE that local shop, enjoy regional success and stop it with this online is the only way forward kinda thinking.
On another mom-and-pop note: how we parent relates to our successes/problems with our junior staff. I cannot tell you how many women I work with complain about young staff that lack the capacity to self-direct, are unable to receive constructive criticism, and then constantly ask for raises (not performance reviews), all while missing the marks of their job descriptions (assuming they’ve got one of those.) Again, there’s a thick soup of demographics and sociopolitics and big-E economics operating in the background here, but more on that later. How we raise our children directly impacts what kind of workforce we are developing.
Lack of attention to administrative and organizational matters, and true resistance to leaning into the growth edge that is directly connected to scaling (for any size business.) Growing ANYTHING ain’t easy, as every gardener, parent, and business owner can tell you—good results ALWAYS take a lot of work. Deliberate and earnest focus on the back end, is how your hot shit idea/product/service makes money, not the other way around.
So. I’ve started to question my and my clients’ INTENTIONS. What drives us to do what we do, or keeps us aligned with the values-driven, purpose-oriented creative businesses we’ve CHOSE to work so hard at? More questions:
Is it ethical to pay the lowest wages we can get away with, while hoping for help more sophisticated than we can afford?
When the need for help is urgent—not employees, but real business help—how much are we willing to invest into building the structures necessary to support that kind of coworker?
Why do we want growing businesses, really?
If you want to scale, welcome to being a boss: your new hats include day-to-day director, crisis HR manager, and janitorial inspection chief. Being a good boss ain’t bringing bagels in as an apology after failing to have onboarding processes and materials, formal job descriptions and career paths, and quarterly check ins. All that stuff is/should be table stakes if you have more than just a handful of employees. When you get bigger, you need annual plans— mentorship programs, professional development systems… and also super-fun stuff like harassment training and performance improvement plans.
If that feels like too much, that’s ok! I would encourage you to think more about getting off the hamster wheel and doing a badass job on your own. I can tell you, it’s actually fucking fabulous and should be rebranded as thriving, and SUCCESS.
Oooooooooor, maybe we REALLY need to start seeing the connections between current trends in how we parent, how we educate, how we manage, and how we grow a young working/middle class that I’m certainly observing aren't given enough autonomy and agency early enough to make them vibrant contributors in workplaces. Start acknowledging how we NIMBY ourselves into corners than makes humble thriving seem shameful. Start saying NO to cutting our own noses to spite our faces and shuttering instead of staying open.
I know this is a lot, but I think it's time we talk about it.
#getwithit
gJ
*Offended? Read some of my resources in relation to the above:
