You may not think about your business this way, but your business is a machine that’s built to generate leads, sell business, deliver your services, and collect money.

Your organization structure (org chart, job descriptions, reporting relationships, linkages between roles) is the blueprint for how all the parts of your company are organized and connected to create the smooth running, profitable business machine that you want it to be. If you don’t have an org structure or job descriptions, check out these articles on my blog: Org structure, Job descriptions.

And like most machines, your business machine needs to be tuned up and aligned periodically. Tightening up your org structure will help eliminate many of the problems, dropped balls, and customer complaints that you probably experience during the year that eat up your time, cause you stress, stunt your growth and drain your profit.

In my mind, December is the perfect time to tune up and align your org structure. That’s because, in December most owners, tend to take stock of the year that’s ending, look at what’s working, identify areas that need improvement, and set goals for the coming year. Yet, I’ve noticed that for some reason, your org structure never gets much attention as you close out this year and plan for next, and that’s a big mistake.

So, I’m officially proclaiming December to be “National Org Structure Tune-Up and Alignment Month.” Catchy, right? And why not? Everything else (from Hot Breakfast to Pigs) has a month? So why not Org Structure Tune-Ups and Alignment? Sound the horns!

So, if you want to celebrate National Org Structure Tune-Up and Alignment Month – and why wouldn’t you – here is a tune-up and alignment diagnostic checklist to help you identify areas of your org structure that may need some tightening up:

Org Structure Tune-Up and Alignment Diagnostic Checklist

Org Chart

• Are there any jobs that need to be added to support your growing business?
• Are there any jobs that are no longer necessary or need to change?

Job Descriptions

• Do the job descriptions still adequately define the scope of work that each job is expected to perform?
• Are the people in those roles doing the work that’s described in their job descriptions? Is there anything on their job description that:
  • They don’t have time to do?
  • You no longer think should be part of their job?
  • Should be added to the description of the job?
• Are the success measures the right ones for each job?
• Are there any tasks that consistently fall through the cracks because no one seems to own them? Who should be responsible for those tasks?

Linkages Between Jobs

• Are the linkages between jobs (e.g., Marketing and sales, sales and operations, operations, and office) working well?
  • Are sales giving a complete and detailed handoff of sold work to the crews so that it is clear what they are supposed to do?
  • Does the field communicate job progress, hours, bills for materials, add on work, etc., to the appropriate place in a timely fashion?
  • Does the field give feedback to sales about estimating improvements?
• Are the reporting relationships working effectively? For example, between the owner and management team or between your production manager and the crews?
• Do you have a management system? (a well-defined and consistently applied system for managing your business, made up of a regular schedule of meetings that happen throughout the year that you and your managers use to manage the business.
• Is there good communication throughout the business?

Your People

• Do you have the right people in the right roles?
• Are the people performing well in their roles?
• If not, do they have a development plan to identify the areas where they need to improve and training and coaching set up to help them?

Goals and Incentives

• Do you have clear and specific goals for the business?
• Does everyone in your business know the goals?
• Does everyone in your business have individual goals that align with your business goals?
• Do you have incentives in place that encourage everyone to align their efforts to achieve your business’s goals?

The keys to alignment and tune-up success

Now that you’ve completed your Tune-up and Alignment Checklist, there are two keys to success that I’d like you to do:

1. Follow through and fix the areas needing improvement so that you can enter the new year with your business running smoothly and hitting on all cylinders.
2. Add this Tune-up and Alignment Checklist to your to-do list for next December so that you make this part of your annual year-end planning process