The Culture of a Two-Person Operation
Miramar Traffic & Parking Signs, LLC is currently a two-person operation that is ran by my boss and I. With such an organizational structure at play within the company, the organizational culture is almost wholly determined by my boss and his values, attitude, and expectations. With my boss having the greatest say in matters, I do have a bit more sway over the culture than those in larger organizations due to the size of the start up business. I am happy to report that the company has an open-minded attitude towards hearing out my opinions and thoughts on work-related matters and has an expectation for attentiveness and a focus on learning the processes and practices of the business.
When I started my first day at the company, I was unsure of how things would be ran by my boss and what the norms would be regarding doing business from a home office. I have found that the days run on a tight schedule starting work at 8:00 am and continuing to 5:00 pm, and we immediately begin our day going through the objectives for the day. So far, the way things have been handled is through very close interaction and explanation, as I am getting used to the functions and processes we use to quote and fill customer orders. The interactions are thankfully informal but always centered around the work at hand, which I believe makes the work feel much less stressful and allows for easy communication regarding problems and opinions.
The easy, informal communication between my boss and I have had multiple benefits regarding the objectives of the organization, which currently is to grow our customer base, diligently create quotes for these customers, and accurately update all the relevant spreadsheets for each step of the process for each customer. At the beginning, I simply listened, learned, and asked questions when necessary, but I quickly realized that this being my boss’ first start-up company that he was learning with me. This shifted my mindset from being an obedient follower to one that asked more questions, shared my opinion on more matters, and pushed back when I thought there may be a better way to go about a certain sales or recording process. My active participation and volunteering of opinion has led to the implementation of more easily formatted and communicative spreadsheets and reports and a growing contact list within the company, which is all thanks to the open, inviting, and informal organizational culture.
I imagine it might be somewhat challenging writing these reflections given that your boss is also a family member. I imagine that this may also make it challenging in regards to communication, power dynamics, etc. – particularly given that you are learning the business (the ins and outs) together. But what a cool opportunity to be working at the ground level. Seems you get to help establish the norms, set the tone for the communication, etc. Seems that the thing impacting leadership (the need to be attentive to some things over others) has less to do with the nature of the business perhaps and more to do with the context of it being a new business (for your supervisor as well as you).