It’s interesting to note that the professional world sometimes presents the same challenges as those we face as individuals: knowing how to grow and evolve.
How many companies - especially small and medium-sized ones - experience major problems when they grow organically or when they merge? There are certainly no official figures on this subject, but this theme comes up in informal discussions in various business circles.
Here are a few points that shed some light on this issue:
• The first change is in the head: many bosses continue to think “small” by keeping certain aspects by tradition: it is nice and often intuitive but totally counterproductive.
• Top management must “viscerally” accept the loss of the “family” aspect in favour of a more complex organization with indirect management, new entities, technical specialists, etc.
• The change of scale must be anticipated and accompanied, if necessary, by experts or specialists who have experienced this situation.
• One must be ready to invest and to change scale without being unreasonable: believing that one can continue with the same means is simply suicidal: one must have the courage of ambitions even if it means modifying certain aspects later.
• Middle management must be trained to change scales, volumes, surfaces, costs, etc. In some cases, it is necessary to change certain managers who are unwilling or unable to “take the plunge”.
• Senior management must often learn to delegate much more, to stop deciding everything about everything, to trust and not to fall into micro-management.
These points seem obvious, but in practice we often see the opposite. The great failures in business growth are often linked to the war of egos of the leaders in an organization and a totally deficient governance. Far be it from us to invite an army of organizers of all kinds in the company, but the “union minimum” is necessary.
Finally, it has been observed that with the change in scale of the company, form often takes precedence over substance. This can be particularly perverse and divert actions from the primary objective if it is not controlled. The change in size naturally requires changes in communication and certain processes, but it is important that the content remains in sync with the strategy.
In the end, we can draw a parallel with our personal lives during our teenage years: we wanted to play the big man, to be emancipated, to test certain things, but we were happy to go home at night, to be surrounded, fed, housed, and then there came a time when we had to choose, with all that this entailed, right?
Finally, the worst situation for a company can consist in wanting to play in the big league by behaving like a small company: this rarely lasts very long, and the harshness of the market quickly refocuses the debate with all the consequences that this entails.
Thinking about growing does not mean being pretentious: it simply means taking the measure of one’s responsibilities towards customers, employees, and shareholders. There are also good reasons not to change scale, but you must assume the consequences by managing your ego perfectly.
Have a nice week, good thoughts, and good reading.