Scale Architects
Powered by Predictable Success
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.
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.
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?
Big Rut is the second to last stage in the Predictable Success lifecycle. While the Big Rut doesn't sound like something any of us want to put our business in, there are many once-great businesses, organizations, and institutions that have done precisely that.
The problem of Treadmill is the business has begun to lose or even suppress the visionary risk-taking that brought it this far. It is often so subtle that most within the organization don't even notice, and those outside of the organization (especially stockholders) will likely be happier than ever. What no one realizes is that the fate of the entire organization is decided in Treadmill.
Predictable Success is where you, as the leader, can put your foot on the gas pedal, and the whole organization moves forward. You found the tools, made the necessary changes, and in Predictable Success, you reap the rewards. You can keep your business in Predictable Success for the long-haul using these four key strategies!
