What I’ve Learned Working with Small, Growing Organisations
24 January 2024
All organisations experience tension at certain times regardless of size or age. In fact, tension is often a result of change which is necessary to grow, to respond to a variety of external factors or to take advantage of opportunities to improve how an organisation functions. Large organisations very often have internal teams skilled at working with this kind of tension, and when I worked at a large multinational company, that was my role working with individual leaders or teams or managing global scale change projects. In some instances, we brought in large consultancies to work in partnership with the internal team to support the organisation, particularly when changes fundamentally altered how people worked globally. While necessary to manage the tension of change at this scale, working this way is expensive and also relatively uniform, leaving less opportunity to provide a bespoke experience. Now working independently, I have had the opportunity to work with smaller organisations, supporting them through their own points of tension caused by a desire or need to change. In fact, I realised I have a passion for supporting small and growing businesses and wanted to share some important points I’ve noticed and learned in the past couple of years.
We all need support sometimes. Leaders of small organisations are often incredibly passionate and knowledgeable about their business, but they can be quite ‘alone’ and may even still be building their capability in leading and managing. I’ve learned that I can combine my skill as a coach and organisational development expert to periodically support leaders as they need it, how they need it. Even periodic support means they are more effective in moving through to the other side of tension, however that arises. As a result, their businesses benefit.
Building leadership capability is important for all organisations. While large companies often have in-house, standard leadership programs, small organisations rarely will have anything equivalent even if they have a desire for strong, effective leadership. I have worked with individual leaders and leader groups to support their development with a key difference – we worked together in context of what was going on which means they built capability in a very practical, bespoke way and could apply what they learned immediately.
Small projects can have big impact. Smaller organisations can choose to do short, sharp interventions that can make a big difference, really quickly. Last year I worked with an organisation to complete, for the first time, a listening exercise that included a small, but significant sample of employees who shared their honest thoughts about what it feels to work in the organisation and what they felt about its leadership. The outcome led to some significant and immediate leadership decisions, supported individual leaders in their own development and set a direction for improvements the organisation wanted to make across the year.
Bespoke, ‘as needed’ support is more modern and financially accessible. Plenty of examples exist of how work is changing, one being how organisations engage support as they need it and how they need it. For smaller organisations, this is critical because they are dealing with issues that require tailored support rather than something ‘off the shelf’ that can be pricey and unlikely to be truly fit for purpose. I always listen first and work with a leader to propose solutions designed specifically to meet the organisation’s discreet need. Working with an organisation ‘as needed’ feels more modern, efficient and sustainable while being more financially accessible.
Purpose matters and is even more evident in new organisations. Emerging, growing organisations, in particular, readily embrace and recognise the importance of purpose at work. This shows up in relationships and the intention of leaders to create a more modern, fulfilling workplace. They want to do good in the world, but also want to create a great place to work. I have supported smaller organisations to help them be more inclusive, sometimes just as they are getting started. I have worked with leaders and leadership groups to build their leadership capability, so they are creating a leadership culture that matches their ambition to do good in the world by learning to be better leaders. I think it helps that I’m purpose driven because I understand and support leaders and organisations who hold this central to their own ambitions.
