Rapid growth can cause chaos. Heres how to create a strong plan for scaling your team

Rapid growth can cause chaos. Heres how to create a strong plan for scaling yur teamRapid growth can cause chaos. Heres how to create a strong plan for scaling your teamWhen starting our latest venture, my co-founders and I knew that we wanted to scale fast. But Im really grateful we all agreed to sit down and figure outhowwe were going to do that in advance.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreIf you dont plan ahead, youre going to bring on the wrong team members, upset your current customers,ruin your cash flow, and wind up in a worse position than when you started scaling.I learned that the hard way several years ago while trying to scale a supplement business. Our business ramped up in an instant, going from 100 orders a day to 10,000 a day. And initially, that seemed like an amazing accomplishment- until it all came crashing down because our ordnungsprinzip couldnt handle that v olume. Customers werent getting their orders on time, and the product wasnt in the right packaging. It was a mess.The silver lining was that I realized foresight is crucial for growing both quicklyandsustainably. Heres how to make aya your business can handle the boom you have in mindCreate a flexible plan for scalingYou need a roadmap of where youre going before you start gassing up the car.Your map needs to include the milestones that you want to achieve at reasonable intervals Heres when we hire a project manager. Heres when we expand our marketing efforts. But it should also be flexible enough to accommodate the unknown.Youll inevitably haveups and downs- situations you never expected.At ShipChain, for example, our team has a five-year plan for scaling. Weve also pivoted several times already and had to change our focus as we started getting feedback from customers. Sometimes, a goal that was on next years list needs to get done in the next three months- and vice versa.But we al ways have a workable plan in place that we adjust when necessary.If you dont know the route, find someone who doesOne of the best decisions our team made early on was hiring a tech lead before hiring any developers.She sat down and worked out a plan for scaling immediately, which included everything we needed to do to hit the milestones wed laid out for ourselves. Then, she hired the right specialists to help us reach those goals.If we hadnt hired her first, we probably would have wound up hiring a Python programmer, a back end developer, and a web developer all at once, just because we didnt know the best route to take.Entrepreneurstend to have the ready, fire, aim mentality. They realize they need to do more marketing, so they think, Okay, lets go get a bunch of marketers. But that kind of haphazard approach leads to chaotic, unsustainable growth.If you dont know exactly who you need to help you scale quickly, then your first step should be hiring someone who does.Make time to fin d a talented team that works well togetherFinding talented individuals isnt always difficult. The tough part is finding talented individuals who can workwelltogether.If you put together a massive team of highly-trained specialists, but theres no chemistry between them, youre going to have a problem. You need people who click with each other for true collaboration and an efficient work environment- two things you absolutely need to scale effectively.To check for the click, its a good idea for a candidate to meet some team members during the interview processIt gives you a chance to see how everyone will interact and whether or not that person will be a good fit for your company culture.Skills can always be taught. A mindset is very hard to change.Set up a strong training programYou cant scale unless you train all the new faces you bring on as you grow.It often takes weeks to get people into the flow of a new company and really understand their roles and their place on the team. So, m ake sure you have a program in place on day one for new hires to follow. Also, try to get them involved in activities and get-togethers outside of work to cut down on the amount of time they feel new.Youll need a plan for the people doing this training, as well. If you dont have a formal HR department, then the task is going to fall to current employees. Its asking a lot of people to train someone while still keeping up with their role, so make sure you figure out ahead of time how thats going to work.Have a strategy for sprintsRunning a high-growth company comes with a never-ending checklist. Sometimes, theres simply more work than can be handled in an eight-hour day.But you have to be careful about when and how you ask people to go the extra mile.People willburn outif you push them too hard for too long. Sometimes, you just need what developers call a sprint. Lets say somethinghasto be done by Friday, and its going to take 18-hour days for the next three days to make it happen. If thats what you have to do, thats what you have to do. But you also want to give people equivalent time off to balance that sprint. Give them a long weekend. Let them take Monday and Tuesday off if they just busted ass for 70 hours last week.You need to be strategic about when you step on the gas or your rapid growth may end up sputtering out as people start looking for other jobs.Scaling quickly can be exhilarating, but it has to be sustainable. If you havent spent time creating a strong foundation for growth, then you arentbuilding a business- youre building a house of cards.This article first appeared on Minutes.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people