Quick backstory…

@danielacorte, my lovely wife, and world’s greatest fashion designer, also owns a small business: Daniela Corte in Boston.  She designs and produces a women’s clothing line.

About two months ago, her stitcher’s dad got sick and last week he died.  Over the months there was lots of lost time and two last minute trips to South America. This is a dramatic personal tragedy for the stitcher and her family.  It also became a production nightmare for my wife. For years, we have discussed bench strength in her business and how insecure it is to rely on any one person.  But, with daily crisis and production schedules to meet, it is hard to worry about theoretical stuff especially when solving the problem costs both money and time.

Well since last week, I have seen a small cast of stitchers of various skills auditioning to play understudy in my wife’s business.  And all because of the sudden absence of a key employee.  She is not replacing the key employee simply providing for some long needed bench strength. And in the sudden crisis she has found resources that she didn’t know she had.

At around the same time, I had lunch with an old friend who was bemoaning the failure of one of his companies to hire sufficiently for it’s demand.  They had raised plenty of money but were still operating in tiny, everyone is a hero, startup mode.  I was struck by the common cord between the two stories.

We hear horror stories of companies raising millions and hiring so many people that no one is quite sure what any one else does.

This blog post is a cautionary tale to not err on the other side.  Make sure you have built the team that will succeed. People get sick. They take vacations. Their parents die. A work place should be a nurturing, safe space where it is okay to have these things happen.  This means that your company needs to plan instead of react. We are all sometimes guilty of running ultra-lean in order to chase profits.  But this tendency to under-hire has a real and personal impact on your employees and more often than not make your businesses less effective.