Communicating Responsibilities

Working with a start-up company can be fun as well as frustrating. One thing to think about is that staff often wear many hats. When this happens, there may be different staff members who have responsibility or authority over the same or similar areas.

We recently came across a situation with a fulfillment house we are working with. The fulfillment house wanted clarification as to who could approve orders and who they should be confirming with. There was a simple solution; I created a memo outlining staff roles and responsibilities around the fulfillment house. The memo was shared with all staff and even with the fulfillment house (I know, memos are for internal, not external, communication). The fulfillment house was quite appreciative of the memo as they then knew who to contact and who had authority over different areas.

The awareness for today is that not all solutions need to be complicated, sometimes all we need to do is write out some basic parameters and make sure everyone is on the same page.
~Paul