Scale Architects
Powered by Predictable Success
I wanted to take a moment in this article to talk about a trap that a lot of business owners (and just people in general) fall into all the time. I know about the trap because I spent more than ten years in it. Looking back now, I know it caused me extra stress, gave me less joy, and limited the growth of my business substantially.
He said to me, “I wish I spent more time out of my comfort zone.” He went on to describe how the most uncomfortable times in his life were the ones that not only refined him into the man he is today but also created the vast majority of the success he’s had at work and with his family and friends.
Most companies waste an enormous amount of time by either have too many meetings, too few meetings, or just plain lousy meetings. It doesn't have to be this way.
There is one choice every successful Founder must make. At some point, every Founder will need to choose between transforming culture and character of the organization to create the ability to scale OR limiting the growth of the organization to keep it within its current operating capacity.
One common misconception leaders have is to believe they can scale their business by doing more of what they've always done. Pivot. Say yes. Save the day. Then, do it all over again. However, growing and scaling are two completely different challenges.
How do you decide who you let in influence the vision and direction of your company? I'm not just asking about ownership, but on other issues like leadership, decisions, advice, and authority, who do you allow inside?
What do you do when your business stops growing, and what worked in the past only seems to make it worse? To overcome this challenge faced by every growing business, you will need a new roadmap.
Your business culture isn't a fixed set of values you scribbled with your mission statement on a napkin one night. Instead, it is a dynamic set of hierarchical values that can and should change in response to the business' growth and development.
The culture that has given you so much success and brought you so far will, at some point, prevent you from taking your company to the next level. There is an interesting pattern that happens in virtually every successful startup, regardless of their industry.
Every successful company's true values are almost virtually identical. These shared values actually define employee behavior and have more to do with their stage of development than they do their unique identity and how this is ok.
As a founder, your leadership must evolve from being the one to effectively decide and do everything to creating a company that can effectively decide and do everything. One of the skills you must master along the way is leading by question.
Unfortunately for every business, there will come a day when it is no more. This is the unfortunate reality of the final stage of the Predictable Success lifecycle, Death Rattle. There is a greater question here: why is it so hard to stay successful?
