JULY 2019 GERMINATION.CA 33 IT’S FINALLY TIME. After months of work my staff and I have moved into a new location three times the size of our old one. Growing out of our old warehouse was bittersweet. It’s always sad to say goodbye to an old building in which you made a lot of memories, but the prospect of growing your business is always exciting. But success doesn’t come easy. You don’t just push a button and grow your business. I don’t have to tell you it takes a lot of hard work to grow your business enough to build a bigger location, and when you finally do, it’s time to buckle up and begin dealing with the reality of being a bigger, stronger entity. Life as a bigger business is different in a number of ways, both positive and negative. Let’s get the negative ones out of the way. In my next column, I’ll deal with the positives. It tests your patience. During this whole process, I learned that I don’t have a lot of patience. Building a new location is a full-time job and so is running a company. It’s a painful process to have two full time jobs. No one PROCESSING EQUIPMENT 2 LESSONS LEARNED DURING AN EXPANSION Jason MacNevin, Owner, Can-Seed Equipment jmacnevin@canseedequip.com • canseedequip.com likes working 80 hours a week. It takes you away from your family and is taxing on both body and mind. But you learn to manage everything in a healthy way. You learn that patience is a virtue and something you can cul- tivate. Work-life balance is key. It’s not easy, and you don’t always succeed in being as patient as you could be, but it forces you to look in the mirror and learn about yourself — and how you can change. It’s more stressful. I was stressed the entire time we were building, and I’m still stressed. There’s a lot of risk involved in an expansion, but the reward is there if you do it right. All the pressure is on your shoulders, and your entire livelihood depends on your success. You can’t fail — it’s just not an option. But the silver lining is you learn healthy ways to manage your stress and you build a lot of self-confidence in the process. Owning a business isn’t easy. It can be downright rough. But good can always come out of the bad if you take time to look in the mirror and work on improving your skills as a manager and leader. SOMETIMES TAKING ON a life of their own, teams can be very dynamic and be a driving force in helping compa- nies meet new goals and deliver real-world solutions to the challenges and complexities before us. “Nine out of 10 companies agree that the problems confronting them are now so complex that teams are essential to provide effective solutions. To achieve supe- rior performance, companies need to tap into the full range of skills and expertise at their disposal,” according to a report by Ernst & Young. The most successful teams use what I call the 3-C strategy: Culture. Communication. Challenge. Culture is important, and you must recognize and understand the culture of your own company. We know team members must fit the culture of our organization. Some folks are not inherently team-oriented. In an organ- ization such as Oliver, where it is about the collective effort leading to the collective result, you need folks who will fit into that type of culture. Being able to bring folks along in a collaborative, team-oriented culture is critical to building our team. SEED CONDITIONING CORE TO CREATING POWER TEAMS IS THE 3-C STRATEGY Joe Pentlicki, Vice President/COO, Oliver Manufacturing joe.pentlicki@olivermanufacturing.com • olivermanufacturing.com Another key element to building a strong team is com- munication. This not just about communicating everything that is known; it’s about creating systems and processes such that there is a flow of information necessary for our team’s success. A simple way to think about this is having each team member consider what information they need to know and what information they need to share with whom. Then, you need to create the forums where infor- mation sharing can occur. Internally, we do this through regular team meetings, project meetings and stand-up huddle meetings at the start of the day or as needed. The last element — what I see as maybe the most criti- cal piece — is challenging a team to grow. This should require folks to get out of their comfort zones, to try things differently, or to do things that they have not done before. By focusing on culture, communication and challenge, teams can focus on the mission at hand. Putting the right teams together with the 3-C strategy can give you a com- petitive advantage, and who’s not after that?