Startup CXO. Matt Blumberg

the sales cycle, the challenges, and the opportunities. They know the leaders and team members well. The PBP helps leaders, employees, and teams organize, execute, and develop. They coach people at all levels of the organization and run critical People programs such as performance reviews, talent reviews, and leadership development. Organizational Development Leadership Development Initially filled by the PBP, will eventually own overall leadership development and change management. Works closely with PBP on execution of both. People Operations Talent Acquisition Working closely with hiring managers to understand talent needs, they write job descriptions, do competitive market analyses, and look to the future for gaps that need to be filled. They aren't just putting “butts on seats”: they are helping to build teams. Talent Acquisition also manages your employment brand, which can help your company attract the right people. People Operations Onboarding Responsible for the full onboarding lifecycle, from pre‐hire through to 90 days. Often responsible for the overall plan, and helping Operations, Talent Acquisition, and Managers to execute it. People Operations Operations Manages all the systems, repeatable practices, processes, and compliance. Depending on your size and complexity, this role can be combined with Talent Acquisition and Onboarding initially, although they are fairly different skill sets, and if you don't hire specialists soon enough, your team will be overwhelmed and unable to keep pace with your growth.

There's one caution here for companies that are experiencing a lot of growth: it's easy for any team in your company, including People Operations, to become so maniacally focused on their part of the business that they become insular and siloed. That sets the stage for subcultures to emerge. You'll need to ensure that the People team has a really strong operating system to ensure they are focusing on the most important and impactful work, that the team collaborates effectively with each other and the rest of the company, and that all team members keep each other informed.

      As your team grows and develops, you'll want leaders for each of the different functional areas. If you're growing rapidly it's easy to justify bringing in a senior manager to work with a functional area, and if you're relatively small, it's easy to justify not hiring a manager. But what if you're stuck in the middle? Too small to hire someone but too big to be without managers? One solution I've found to that problem is to designate a leader for each functional area and keep everyone reporting to you—the leader and everyone on the functional team. While it can be a little confusing at times, I recommend having every function explicitly owned by someone, even if one person covers more than one function. Be explicit about ownership, so you don't forget important parts of your strategic roadmap.

If you're scaling the People team, the logical first managers will be in People Operations and Organizational Development and you will have systems and people in place for the entire organization. Once you've designated leaders for those two functional areas, make sure that your operating system is updated to include a leadership meeting so leaders can stay aligned on strategy, and guide their teams effectively. Of course, you'll want to continue to have full team meetings as well, so that all functional team members still have relationships and visibility into everything happening on the team and in the business. You'll also want to ensure that you invest time every quarter on team development and deepening skills and emotional intelligence on your team. Your team members need to embody the values of the organization and be role models in their behavior. Keep in mind too that it's really common for a People team to care so much about others in the organization that they neglect themselves. As the Chief People Officer, you need to be aware of this tendency and know your team well enough that you can spot when people are too emotionally invested in the goings on of a company. While you can't completely eliminate this tendency, you can identify it quickly and take steps to minimize the impact. If you have a strong operating system that includes regular leadership and team development, one‐to‐ones with members of your team, and a level of trust where people can admit that they are struggling, you can help your team stay focused and balanced.

      As you continue to grow, the sub‐functions may be ready for their own leaders or managers but there's a tradeoff in scaling by creating subgroups with managers and that is usually less speed and nimbleness. I try to keep the hierarchy as light as possible and prefer to create team leader roles instead of manager roles. I also use the same employee/manager/organizational structure guidelines for the People Operations team that we use in other parts of the organization. That way you have structural alignment company‐wide and that makes promotions, compensation, and career pathing similar across the whole company.

      A powerful way to extend your reach and share responsibility for cultural stewardship is to get a network of volunteers from other teams at the company to drive different people‐related programs. Make it a requirement for each employee to “give back” to the community. At Return Path, we had volunteers who ran social events, community service programs, our well‐being program, and our diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. The People Team managed the programs globally, gave direction, guidance, and budget for local committees.

      If you are creating, or already have, a values‐driven company, the People team is critical to the success for the business. I'd even argue (although my colleagues might disagree!) that the People team are the true drivers of a company and impact both top‐line growth and productivity. Values and culture impact hiring, turnover, engagement, morale, and productivity. There's a measurable effect of culture and values on innovation.

Chapter 27 Organizational Design and Operating Systems

      Be intentional about your organizational design from the beginning, and evaluate it periodically to ensure that your design principles still align with your company values and stage of growth. Use the data you collect from exit interviews, turnover, employee surveys, and employee conversations to determine if the design and principles are still relevant.

      Your initial design work will be with the CEO, and will also engage the leadership team. Your work on organizational design is not theoretical, or something that stands alone. Just the opposite! It goes hand‐in‐hand with culture and values conversations. Your organizational design will never be perfect and will always have tradeoffs to consider. There's a saying that you should “never let perfect be the enemy of good” and that's the case with organizational design. As long as your design aligns with your culture and values, it ought to serve its purpose, which is to help people be as productive and engaged as possible and to ensure that there is the right flow of communication between people and teams.

There are a few things to build in from the beginning, including practices around manager span of control, manager role, cross‐functional teams, and how you think about hierarchy. People have preconceived notions about all aspects of organizations, and having conversations with the leadership team to help them think about the implications of organizational design principles is critical. It's really easy to grow too hierarchical where managers have small spans of control or if you hire managers who have a “command and control” style. You can help leaders get creative about career development when a team isn't big enough for a leader, and employees want to take on leadership roles. Employees in this situation can expand their role by managing workflow, team operating systems, or projects, without becoming the team manager.

      In the beginning, you may not have executive leaders for all the different functional areas, so some executives will lead functions that are new to them. You may have a COO who is also leading Sales, or a CFO leading Technology. Help ensure that leaders who are responsible for several functional areas hire functional experts or get strong mentorship in the areas where they aren't as knowledgeable.

      It's best to evaluate organizational structure every six to twelve months for effectiveness, and to make small adjustments, or do a full redesign and restructure if absolutely necessary. Often as you grow,