October 31, 2018

A = Pe^rt is not the secret formula for a pert bottom, it is in fact the formula for exponential growth, something that the team here at My Mustard has experienced over the last 3 months.

Having been part of this growth myself, I joined with the remit of ‘taking a helicopter view of the business’; in reality this meant putting in place the systems and processes that a growing business needs in order to support and sustain growth.

I do appreciate that the term ‘systems and processes’ sounds more exciting to me than to most, with connotations of spreadsheets, conformity and a general stifling of creativity. In truth, with the right systems and processes in place, time should be saved, workflows made slicker and people should therefore gain more freedom to think creatively and get more done. In this era of flexible and remote working patterns, never have they been so important. And in a business experiencing exponential growth such as ours, it benefits all parties to have them in place – from on-boarding, campaign management and training to more general HR matters.

Perhaps the most significant impact of having good systems and processes in place is team alignment, where everyone works within clear frameworks towards a unified business goal. In a company where teams are growing quickly, having everyone following a clear vision and understanding how they fit in – personally and as a team – in order to achieve overall business goals is critical.

This alignment will in turn fuel autonomy and give people the confidence to make the ‘right’ decisions to drive overall growth. With a team firing on all cylinders, getting systems and process in place to make them perform even better is something all businesses should be looking at implementing as a priority.

– Nadine.