10 things I learnt from Small Business to Large Business

30th June 2022

1. How will this scale? Is a question continually being asked, and answered
2. Organisation reinvention is needed more quickly than you think as you grow fast. Many people will think the changes come too fast until they see what happens a few months later
3. Scale means many individual 'deals' are very hard to manage, unlike before. The exceptions become 80% of time managing
4. A continual powerhouse of growing ambitious people into key positions is essential. People's careers can progress at the pace they decide as in a growing business, there's always room for progress
5. Urgent for you is not urgent for the organisation: the view is very different from certain angles. Your urgency may not be anywhere near the biggest current issue or challenge
6. The company's biggest issue is XYZ. A variant on 5, the biggest issue in your team is often not felt everywhere in an organisation the size of OSF. In fact, it may have already been solved
7. Relationships internally are as important as relationships externally. In a smaller business you work external relationships more because the internal ones are already frequent and built
8. Information is not universally known: in a small business information is easy to distribute and keep people on the same page. In a larger business it is not and needs significant effort to get messages across the breadth and depth of the organisation
9. Proactivity is even more important: to progress in a larger organisation being proactive is even more important than a smaller organisation. In a smaller one a little pro activity goes far. More is required in a larger organisation to get things done