by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

“Progress is impossible without change,” wrote George Bernard Shaw, “and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

 Continued from Part 1 about Start-up Teams…next four growth phases

Critical Mass – This moment happens when the start-up enterprise team is generating enough business and resources that it’s self-sustaining. Now it can begin to really grow and expand because it can stand on its own two feet. Until this point, enterprise team members will be of the mindset: “I do it better myself.”

At this stage enterprise team members are either committed full-time or part-time members. If not, they can continue as advisory board members. The enterprise will have developed a clear, near-term strategic framework and be able to attract the vital resources necessary for growth.

Rapid Growth (Lift-off) – Now the enterprise needs a team of talented people leaders, who can attract, develop, inspire and retain talented people. Talented people will be required to handle capacity and demanding growth issues. Rather like a high velocity projectile, it can shake and heat-up as it gains momentum. It will need all the leadership, management and people talent it can muster to handle this situation…be that in the form of cash-flow jolts, key people being enticed away, markets falling through, disappointed customers going elsewhere, and so forth. 

•    This is where leaders need to have the maturity to realize: “I do it better with others.”

Strategic Growth – Scale and size now requires even better strategic positioning to handle continued growth. It’s rather like a huge aircraft carrier that requires the captain or admiral to start preparing their ship to change course several miles before the event. And so your growing enterprise needs a team of strategists, with a Visionist at the helm, to think ahead and prepare their organization for further growth or change in direction. 

• This requires leaders who can think about tomorrow as well as today… an individual talent much harder to find unless it is nurtured during the early stages of a promising career. Strategic leaders mature to the point where; “Sometimes my people don’t need me around them so much.”

Self-Renewing Growth – Too many high-growth enterprises lose sight of this inevitability, as they aim to maximize their strategic growth phase. Consider successful companies like Staples and Microsoft: where Staples seems to have hit a wall in office supplies as Amazon gobbles up its market on-line. Staples is now trying to diversify through bulk candies, household supplies and electronic goods, in an effort to diversify into new growth markets…maybe too late?   As companies approach this phase, they need to develop cluster leaders (or mini-Visionists) to lead complementary future businesses. Thus enabling the enterprise to jettison its original core business at some point – rather like IBM sold off its mainframe and laptop businesses in favor of “cloud” computing and providing computer capacity.

•    Cluster leaders should be encouraged to pursue blue ocean – fresh markets with relatively few competitors – versus red ocean filled with the blood of so many foes. Pulling off such a visionary strategy requires leaders of extraordinary maturity, who accept that their cluster leaders: “Can do it better without me.”
•   Similarly with Microsoft, which has tried to exploit its dominant software and office systems market for so long, is now under enormous pressure to morph into something else. IBM managed to do this.

Faced with these five phase possibilities, where do you view your enterprise today? Are you properly positioned and do you have the right caliber of leaders – and managers – in place to take your enterprise to its next level of growth? Done properly, your venture will continue to grow and prosper, despite the ups and downs of the marketplace…rather like the venerable enterprises General Electric, Kellogg, Proctor and Gamble, Goldman Sachs and others. All of these latter companies constantly, and still do, place an awful lot of investment into leadership development. Many of the bigger enterprises are looking for leadership development specialists…because they know it pays…handsomely.

To learn more about these five growth phases, talk with: