One can easily say that small things can cause maximum pain or damage... Look at the examples of: Sleeping in a room with a 7mm mosquito ; Agonizing from a 3mm kidney stone ; Receiving a 9mm bullet in the stomach... Is small horrible then?
Not in the modern corporate world.
A lot of prominent business books or professors often promote buzzwords such as "economies of scale", "size matters", "competitive advantage of large corporations" etc. Well, it is interesting to see that small also means: Speed, Agility, Responsiveness, Innovation, Pioneering, No Politics...
Small start-ups have been proliferating in the past two decades, leading to unprecedented changes and improvements in our society. Hundreds start-ups are really small but fully contribute to making the world a better place, through improved education (2tor), transportation (Betterplace), charity (global giving), communication (instagram) ... And the list goes on. Forbes Magazine has recently listed those start-ups changing the world.
That said, event start-ups grow in size and successful ones will become larger, or will be acquired by large corporations - see the recent purchase of Instagram by Facebook for almost $1 billion...
The key question then is:
How to always preserve the pioneering spirit, the one that really spurs creativity and world-changing innovation?
I believe that maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit in a fast-growing business is possible, by:
1/ Giving freedom within a framework to the employees. This is achieved by allowing 'out-of-the-box' thinking, within the general guidelines of the company. Too heavy processes, reporting or budgeting will progressively asphyxiate the company, and entrepreneurs will soon die. You'll be left with the accountants on board, and growth and innovation will fade away.
2/ Retaining top entrepreneurial and creative talent. You cannot force 'eagles' to fly in formation like 'ducks'. So retain your 'eagles' by not forcing them into a hierarchical, old-fashioned, authoritative culture. Just cocoon them, feed them with what they cherish most: Space and Freedom - not necessarily money and job titles.
3/ Preserving the sense of purpose, the dream. The world's most important transformations have not been accomplished by anything else than dreams. Someone had a dream that all men would be treated equally in the US. Someone had a dream that an astronaut should be able to walk on the moon. Someone had a dream that music would be sold on-line rather than on CD. What's the dream of the start-up? What's the dream of your company? What's the founder's dream? Is it still alive?
Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group, gives a very good example of "small is beautiful" leadership approach. His group is composed of nearly 400 small companies. He prefers to spin-off a separate entity rather than growing the original one - for example, Virgin America is the infant spin-off of Virgin Atlantic. Branson explains his "small is beautiful" approach well : "smaller companies can stay both more nimble and more customer-focused. They can also maintain the style and cheekiness of their early trailblazing if they stay relatively compact."
So my last words for today :
Grow Fast, but Remember : Small is Beautiful and Can Change the World.
