Organisational effectiveness dictates the rate of growth

It’s really sad to see how many businesses fail to realise their full potential. Is it down to poorly defined value propositions, bad design, poor sales and marketing or financial control…sometimes it is. My view is that a company’s growth prospects are inextricably linked to the rate at which the founder, team and leaders can develop themselves. Businesses make transitions at key points of their journey and if the management fail to personally address these changes and the extra demands placed on them then the “growth ceiling” very quickly presents itself.

It starts with the leader’s ability to undergo personal change and continuously adapt their style and approach to overcome the challenges faced along the journey – self awareness is a must have for all entrepreneurs. In a high growth business the founder has to be clear on what they are good and bad at and build a team around them that compensates for their own personal shortcomings. The inability to delegate is the classic dilemma faced by so many individuals running their own business. This is the very reason why so few companies go on to employ more than 25 employees.  Organisational development is a pivotal part of achieving growth, and what do the VCs keep telling us – it’s all about the team.

My advice to any high growth business/entrepreneur is get the right people in the right seats doing the right things. Having the wrong people doing the right job is so common, and if we are honest with ourselves virtually all of us have been there and got it wrong, big time! A company without an effective team delivers sluggish performance at best – gazelle performance? Not a chance.

Embracing a learning culture and environment where personal improvement is encouraged and supported is non negotiable, but of course this takes time. Staff and the team are the most important component of any business. When we get the right team in place almost anything is possible. Without it growth is stunted and blockages appear – these blockages manifest in long working hours, customers being let down, poorly managed contracts, finances going off the rails, quality dipping, disgruntled staff, poor communications – a feeling of rabbit in the headlights, can’t see the wood for the tress, all familiar clichés entrepreneurs have come to live with. The antidote is investing in people and staff.

Getting the organisational structure and team right is a difficult job and perfection is challenging to say the least. Your organisation is only as good as the people who are part of it and remember the organisational and team effectiveness will dictate your rate of growth.

Discipline must run in parallel with Innovation

High growth companies are disproportionately innovative to those that are not and whilst I believe creativity is the ultimate source of competitive advantage, I must caveat my views. The importance of embedding a culture to allow free thinking that stimulates new ideas is well documented. However, without control you end up with pet projects, loads of possibilities and hundreds of potential initiatives that absorb time, energy and resource. Large companies have processes to deal with their ideas pipeline, but in smaller high growth businesses the danger is that there is too much innovation and entrepreneurship and not enough control and discipline.

Commercial problems potentially loom when there is too much lateral thinking and lack of order. Jim Collins in Good to Great uses a very powerful phrase – “Disciplined Entrepreneurship”. This embraces the notion of balance – innovative thinking and behaviours being guided within a framework of performance measures and KPI’s.

Too much Discipline – then a disconnection with customers, markets and new possibilities takes place

Too much Entrepreneurial flair – nothing gets done because everyone is bouncing off the walls with great ideas

Successful high growth companies tend to have a disciplined approach to new idea generation and implementation – a form of commercial filter. I often wonder how much smaller high growth companies can teach large corporates about innovative thinking and entrepreneurship. The reverse is also important – how can big companies help ambitious founders gain a better handle on their organisation? Feels like a powerful learning forum!

Business Coaching For Growth

I am delighted to announce that Winning Pitch will be part of the team delivering the UK Government Business Coaching for Growth programme – here is an extract from today’s BIS’s Enterprise Directorate publication - Business Improvement Programme Newsletter

Appointment of BCG Provider

We are pleased to announce the appointment of the ‘Coaching for Growth Consortium’ as our preferred bidder to deliver the Business Coaching for Growth programme.   The consortium comprises Grant Thornton, Pera, Oxford Innovation and Winning Pitch along with 7 other key delivery partners together with excellent connections to local support providers right across the country. The service will be delivered on a national basis across England and will be up and running in spring 2012.

A great opportunity to make a massive difference to UK growth and our forward thinking, ambitious and innovative SMEs!

Your Business – An “asset” or “calling”

It never ceases to amaze me how passionate and animated entrepreneurs become when they talk about their business and what they do. To those listening it can come across as “in your face”, however, the reality is, most founders are just so proud of what they have achieved. Business and personal time are inextricably linked feeding each off every minute of the day.

The successful high growth entrepreneurs I have worked with often started their business because of a “calling” – this means putting something right, fixing a problem, chasing a dream of freedom, pursue a passion, wanting to make a difference or proving to others they can achieve something quite amazing.

So many entrepreneurs often forget that their business is also an asset with value. The danger is when the founders view their company solely as an asset. This creates inward focused strategies, lack of customer focus, greed, ultimately this will lead to only one place  - a disconnection with the real world and decline. My advice is when the voice of the “calling”  gets overshadowed by the asset, its time for rethink. A danger zone is just around the corner. Its about balance, of course a business must generate wealth, however it works far better and in my view becomes more profitable when its game plan is linked to a purpose.

That feeling of doing what you do because it makes a difference to others is probably one of the best you can have in your career, long may it last!

High Growth Foundation Wow Event – Insights from Google

What an absolutely fantastic High Growth Foundation event the other night at the Imperial War Museum. Led by Michael Taylor with his usual charm, wit and insight, we had a great line up of speakers who had fantastic and inspirational stories to tell. Steve Oliver and his Music Magpie venture is a real one to watch in the Region, and success could not be more deserved, a really nice bloke. Steve speaks from the heart and his views on creating a loyal workforce with a culture of graft were well received. Deepak Jayaraman from Goldman Sachs articulated the benefits of mentoring and how the 10,000 small business programme can help in this regard.

Alexis Giles delivered a fantastic key-note and shared with over 200 delegates Google’s rules for building an innovative culture and gosh were they powerful, here they are:

1. Ideas come from everywhere – everyone has a place at the table
2. Share everything you can – create a culture of sharing new thoughts, no idea is a bad idea
3. Hire smart people – they create a challenging culture
4. Chase your dreams – create 20% thinking time
5. Innovation is not instant perfection – have a go and refine
6. Data is apolitical – provide the fact to evidence potential
7. Creativity loves constraint – draws out new ideas quick
8. Users not money – money follows the eyes
9. Don’t kill projects, morph them – iterate till you get it right

Alexis was a real star performer and delivered some real value to businesses with a passion to grow. One of the nuggets I took away was the importance of embedding processes and systems as a company grows. Google are a shining example of how an innovative culture fused with discipline delivers excellence. The lack of processes and systems is what so often stunts growth, innovation on its own is not enough.

Alexis and the Google story was an inspiration for ambitious people – so chuffed she will be hosting our  study tour at Google’s Mountain View complex in March 2012 – what an experience that will be. Its not all doom and gloom.