Too Small To Scale?
No — This Is The 21st Century Folks!
We Built A Small Team So That We CAN Scale
People often ask us whether we can scale. They think what we do depends on a small number of principals in the business. The answer is an emphatic no.
Picture this — A business has a brilliant vision and a powerful strategy. The challenge isn’t ever getting that part fixed. The challenge is always getting it to work — across the business — at scale.
That requires ownership of hearts and minds — not more people.
Scaling. A State Of Mind
Scale is about operational attitude and the correct supportive infrastructure — not the number of people. No matter how many people exist in the business scale is always limited by the lack of ownership and the right amount of commitment to engagement.
First by the leadership and then through poor discipline and systems/processes.
Scale Is About The Degree Of Interest
What we do — Structured Visual Thinking™ — is a collective concept. It’s always been a team effort in association with our clients and partners. We are as big or as small as we need to be. Because we partner (Group Partners) our resource is infinite.
We observe that if people get the value of working and thinking in ways that benefit them then they will engage and motivate others.
They are interested. They see.
It’s Only Ever The Commitment That Counts
And that’s what’s missing from many leaders and a lot of enterprises. Because what we make is a ‘framework’ it’s repeatable — scalable. Like any complex and challenging problem only a small number* of people tend to get together at the beginning to figure out what needs doing.
From there onwards scaling ownership and engagement is the challenge for the enterprise. This is almost always about commitment, determination and understanding by the leadership.
We make the tools and weaponry that empower and enable others.
* Another advantage of working within frameworks is that a larger number can be involved in creating the initial framework too.
Success — Owning The Sustainable Result
Getting our clients and partners to genuinely own the results of our intervention is of critical importance for us. The alternatives are scary. Outsourcing the problem to 3rd parties and abdicating responsibility has never ever worked.
It’s those with their hands on the levers that need the support. The difference in success and failure of any strategy is the ability of teams and individuals to proceed without referring to others all the time.
It’s that freedom and independence from us that drives what we do.
Equipped 4 Thinking™ — We’ve built tools that can be shared, learned and applied by others. The framework’s are capable of being applied by many people — those who take the time and the trouble to learn the principles and use the equipment.
Scaling — The Content
Starting to think in frameworks.
Akey principle of ours is that successful strategy, problem solving, change transformation and value creation in business is a team sport. Therfore to scale it’s based on a set of common tools, techniques and principles. It follows no matter what the challenge.
Why This Works
- Structure — We have a series of containers — modules/frameworks — we need to put the best information into these in order to emerge with a better outcome. It’s a calculation. It evolves as we learn more.
- Detection — As a team we have to uncover what’s going on right now. We must think hard about the existng situation, the challenge we’ve expressd and the outcome we want. Only then we can start to associate all the things we’ve uncovered with one another. It’s a framework.
- Holistic Thinking — Then, as a team — we need to think very hard about what it looks like — inside the context of the whole framework. Then we can start to create the future we are dreaming of. Because the tools are primarily visual it becomes a picture everyone can see and be inspired by.
- Critical Thinking — Once this is done we then have to choose the path that’s most likely to deliver it. At the same time we have to decide how to measure the progress. We have to agree the value that we think each step will produce. We have to understand the achievement we want — measured in our own terms.
- Collaboration — Because all of this is done as a team much of the ownership is already in place. Those who now need to start delivering will have fully understood what’s needed and why. But the challenge still exists.
- Sustainability — The challenge is now clear but the new behaviours need to be in place to maintain any progress. We have to ‘platform’ the future using the right technology and the partners we are going to need. We need to underpin the change with new standards, principles and the rules that we’ll need to sustain this over time.
- Communicate — And finally we need to campaign everything that emerged — all the time. This means communication and interaction with all those who matter and will decide our fate — they will be our ‘customers’ — internally and externally.
