Harris Environmental Group, Inc. (HEG) began in 1993 as an environmental consulting company specializing in natural resources.  Five years later, founder and president, Lisa Harris, felt her clients would benefit more from their services if HEG offered cultural resource consulting as a part of its core services.  To accomplish this, she set out to bring on several good archeologists for her firm.

At that time, HEG numbered five, including a staff of four biologists.  With a new team of archeologists, a business development manager and additional administrative support, the corporate culture changed.  What previously had been a small firm working out of Harris’ guest house now grew into a larger organization, necessitating a move to rented office space in the downtown area. 

With new faces and new roles came a new power structure and new internal systems required to ensure smooth project flow and promote more cohesive teamwork among its newer and older team members.  In addition, HEG had to move from a very informal, unstructured culture to a more formal, corporate-like organization to better meet the needs of its clients and to run more efficiently.  These changes were not taken well with the original employees who wanted to keep things small and retain the old way of doing things.  As such, the original team, over time, left the company. 

The growing pains HEG experienced are certainly common among businesses choosing to grow in order to meet increased demand and to become more responsive to changing market forces.  These changes tend to push many employees out of their comfort zones, and as such, force them to either rise to the new standards or deselect from the company.  This is a painful, but often necessary transition, for business owners and team members alike.  A once small, agile business can no longer use its unstructured, “shoot from the hip” approach as it once could, because with increased size and volume, comes the potential for more communication and other system breakdowns.  Growing a business will also entail more overhead, increasing the pressure to drive additional revenue and profit to cover the added cost burden. 

Maybe growth doesn’t sound as exciting anymore?
 
The fact is growth can be very positive move for your business if several key steps are followed.  First, create a pro forma budget to plan for the additional financial requirements you’ll need as a result of increased overhead and additional business volume.  Second, realize that the way you do things now will likely have to change.  A small company can communicate and operate in a more “fly by the seat” way than a larger organization.  In order to ensure better consistency and to minimize chaos, you’ll need better systems, including clearly defined roles, responsibilities and procedures for each area of your business.  Third, realize that the small company dynamics of a few people can change drastically with the addition of just a few more people to the mix.  How will this impact your current company’s culture?  Are you willing to risk losing some good people?  These are important questions to consider.

One last key point; determine if you really need to (and want to) grow.  Increased growth doesn’t necessarily equate to increased profit.  In most cases, it means more headaches, surprises and frustrations.  Make sure you consider all the consequences of growth, for better or for worse. 

Thankfully, with the help of a business coach and through the acquisition of the right employees, HEG has successfully transformed itself into a more versatile, customer-focused firm.  For Harris, the process certainly wasn’t easy and definitely had its share of stress and painful moments along the way.  However, Harris has no regrets (other than she would have hastened the transition of the old team leaving to expedite the company’s transformation).  

While it took a good five years or more to solidify the changes, HEG can now more effectively and efficiently handle their client’s full range of environmental compliance issues, from project design to completion.  HEG now numbers close to 20 employees and last year opened an office in Phoenix. 

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