Council Post: Are You Hitting A Ceiling At Work? That’s A Good Thing.

CEO and founder of Second Life Mac, an Apple device buyback company that works with schools and enterprises.

The level of frustration was off the charts at a recent meeting with my leadership and sales teams. There weren’t enough hours in the day to take care of anything other than the most pressing items. People were being pulled in multiple directions, preventing them from getting their work done. We weren’t able to follow up on every lead.

And that made me so happy.

I don’t enjoy seeing my team stressed, and I certainly don’t like missing out on business opportunities. But what we were experiencing is something that every entrepreneur should strive for: We were hitting a ceiling.

A ceiling is a point in the growth of a business when something has to give. Hitting a ceiling is a sign that the company is exceeding growth plans, and that’s a great thing. In our case, some strategic moves we made this spring resulted in our ability to close three huge deals this summer. All of our other work didn’t stop when these deals came in, so the team definitely felt the pinch.

By my estimation I’ve hit eight ceilings since I’ve started my company. When I hit my first ceiling, I was my company’s sole employee. Today, we have 105 employees all hitting the ceiling together, and it’s glorious because it signals a new level of growth. 

Build it into the culture.

While hitting this ceiling is a new sensation for many on my team who joined us from large companies, I knew it was coming. The signs were all over the place: People were stretched thin, nonessentials were put on the back burner and people were frantically looking for help anywhere they could find it.

Instead of trying to avert the ceiling, it’s important to hit it and break through it intentionally. 

It isn’t always pretty. For example, a number of people on the team came to me looking to hire people immediately to help alleviate the pressure. My response was, “Not yet.” It’s not that I want my team to burn out, and I’m not opposed to hiring people. I just want to make sure we hire the right people for where the business is headed. 

This required us to stop and reassess where we are going as a company, to look at short- and long-term needs throughout the company, and to create a plan to hire for the right positions instead of only alleviating pain with resources we may not need when the pressure is gone. In other words, we needed to slow down to go fast.

In an entrepreneurial company, it’s important for the team to get used to the concept of hitting a ceiling and to realize it’s healthy. The best way to help them do that is to build a culture where people feel comfortable raising their hand to ask for short-term help. Then, the team feels empowered to do what it takes to get it done.

Break through the ceiling.

When the ceiling is looming, it’s time to start visualizing the short-, medium- and long-term needs of the company. What do you need to break through this ceiling and what will you need for the growth that’s coming?

In the short term, this often means reassigning people to meet urgent needs. Then it’s time to look six to 12 months out to forecast likely medium-term growth. Based on what we see happening and making educated forecasts, we can determine the type of hires we should make soon to ensure they are trained and ready when the growth hits in six-plus months. This practice of “slowing down to go fast” allows you to make planned hires — instead of reactionary ones — that are the perfect fit for the growth that’s coming.

Then you should forecast out even further — years in the future — to envision the company you are building. This view of the type of company you want to be in one, three or even 10 years is helpful to know what you will need to do to get there. Like the famous quote attributed to hockey great Wayne Gretzky: Skate to where the puck is going. In other words, envision the goal and then work backward to make the right hires to get there.

Clearly, this is a much more strategic approach to hiring than finding a warm body to relieve the pressure for a few months.

Put it into practice.

We recently spent a week as a leadership team envisioning the future and discussing how we would get there. In the midst of crazy growth, we took our foot off the pedal momentarily to plan for the future.

When we emerged from this process, we had a solid road map outlining the hires we needed to make and when we needed to hire them. We also had a team of leaders who fully understood that what they had been experiencing — hitting the ceiling — was both a good thing and something to strive for again. The same team that entered this planning process feeling frustrated and overwhelmed emerged feeling energized and united.

Ceilings are inevitable for growing entrepreneurial companies. Avoiding the discomfort that comes from them deprives leaders the opportunity to feel the excitement, passion and satisfaction of knowing they’ve hit a huge growth milestone, and that they are poised to exceed the next growth goal.

Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?