Upscaling 7 - Pressure points

When moving from the #startup to the #scaleup phase there is a high risk of creating pressure points. I have often observed key employees who played a pivotal role in the success of the start-up, getting burned-up when scaling-up.

These employees are critical to the success of the organisation, and they have a wealth of knowledge, experience, a big sense of responsibility and most of all passion for the organisation. They are the best sales people, they have strong connections with clients, they know the product(s) inside-out, and they must generate higher revenues to carry the larger organisation. They also get pulled into every internal meeting because they know how things are done and should get done. On top of that, they need to train, #manage and #mentor an increasingly large number of new recruits. Their experience is invaluable, their input is important.

Their passion will carry them for a long time, but they are likely to burn-up, #burnout, and at some point, they do not see another option then to leave the company to find more balance, taking with them their knowledge, passion, #leadership.

It is important to be aware of these pressure points and act to protect them. Incorporate #successionplanning, develop #learninganddevelopment tools that capture the knowledge of critical people and distribute this knowledge through different means and people. Understand the values of your organisation and share them widely so they can be carried by everybody. Adjust the design of the organisation. Apply the #distributedleadership model; empowering other individuals and spreading the pressures of scaling up more evenly.