When Start-Ups Grow Up: Three Must-Haves For Changing Culture

Posted by Sian Phillips under Startups
From http://tweakyourbiz.com 4270 days ago
Made Hot by: kingofcontent92 on March 4, 2013 11:57 am

By Chris Groscurth

I am currently consulting with a start-up client that is getting ready to “put on” its big boy pants. Over the last five years the company has grown to about 30 employees and has annual revenues of $25 million. The leaders of this team are beginning to realize that the high-energy days of a small team wearing multiple hats are over, and it’s time to develop leaders and processes to support the client’s strategic direction, and ensure that all employees are familiar with the values and behaviors that make my clients start-up special.

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Comments

Written by myspalmer
4266 days ago

Hiya Chris,

Love the title. When start-ups grow up! It made me smile. I think you're spot on. A small business may not stay small and scaling up will be difficult without core foundations. Even huge corporations fumble on boarding and leadership. Start-ups can get this right early on and have a plan for tweaking as the company reaches beyond its pubescent stage. Great tips!

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Written by HeatherStone
4268 days ago

Hi Chris,

I think one of the most important points you allude to here is that a company's culture must be based on behaviors and values already inherent. In other words, company culture is based on creating processes that support values already present in the company. Changing company culture and values is a different matter entirely and I think some teams when going through the process don't think hard enough about the basic culture that already exists and how much this affects everything built upon it. Thanks for your post and thanks to Sian Phillips for sharing it with the BizSugar community.

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Written by Mentorship4U
4270 days ago

This is one of those important points in organizational life-cycle. Few get to growth, and even fewer can get past that critical mass of start-up into full blown operations where formalized process, etc are needed to effectively manage the organization.

Far too often small businesses don't put the necessary infrastructure/tools in place early enough to get enough breakthrough velocity to promote their business past start up and ultimately fail.

Good luck to you and your client, we wish them luck and hope we can get some updates on progress/lessons learned.

Thanks

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