<< 🐣 Start Up Stage

🐓Growth Stage>>

Okay, so you’ve proven your product/service offering, figured out your market, some money coming in, and the team has grown significantly. There’s a lot more now to think about in terms of the people factor whilst balancing out the financial health of the organisation - and still staying true to the original mission.

People

• Articulate company values
• Developing people leadership
• Ways to handle ego clashes

If you miss this

• You won’t attract the right talent
• The right talent you already have might jump ship

Way of Working

• Metrics that monitor how you do things
• Templates for repeatable processes
• Decoupling from founder centric ways of operating

If you miss this

• Precious time wasted on administration
• Difficulties articulating what’s going wrong and where improvements are needed
• Employee agency is reduced

Culture & Communication

• Horizontal and vertical information flows
• Feedback processes

If you miss this

• Valuable information from one team may not reach another
• Subcultures and silos can form

Roles and Responsibilities

• General role description
• Decision making scope

If you miss this

• No clarity on who is meant to do what
• Job ambiguity, stress and frustration

Some starting steps…

• Establish processes to streamline repetitive activities such as recruitment, accounting, people management tasks
  • Note though that to remain nimble, leave room to circumvent process when needed. eg give a “Kill a stupid rule” award to employees
• Setting up clear roles and responsibilities is critical in this phase to ensure decision making scope and key accountabilities per role
• Review the role of the founders, and their scope of influence. Start paving the way for decentralising.