Character and the trouble it can cause you and your owner-operated business: If you, as a small business, don’t add the “Structure” of Goals, Roles and Controls internally to support the volume weight of growth, then the business will either be crushed by the weight of organizational problems and internal dissension or “max out’ at the level of skill and time contributable by the owner.

I see it all the time: The company may grow rapidly from nothing to $4-5,000,000.00 based on its owner’s Character, its skill set and value proposition, then will stop growing as the founder still tries to do and decide everything. Sometimes the founder acts or reacts “jealously” over power, or greedily over money (because the company is “my baby”); sometimes the founder or dominant owner acts “valiantly” (because nobody can do it as well or cares like I do, which may be true up to a point). But, even the valiant founder will stifle the organization’s growth and success if structure does not augment character.

Whatever the reason, the failure to add Structure to Character will stifle, if not destroy, the company.