Why do you need a different mindset for scale?

Is it time to adopt a scaling mindset?

There is an inflection point in your business growth journey that calls for a shift in mindset. When your product is where it needs to be, your customer base is established and you’ve stayed on course consistently, you can start to think more meaningfully about the kind of business you want to run longer term. 

Adopting the right mindset for scale is about moving away from short termism and survival-based decision making to more of a long-term strategic view. Making the shift to a scaling mindset, in essence, is about giving yourself permission to believe that your business is going to run for the longer term and changing how you make decisions accordingly. 

Let’s imagine your start-up is a speed boat. You can fit a few people on board, change course at a moment’s notice and it’s fast, agile and probably feels a bit out of control at times if you’re not concentrating! 

A scaleup is more like a yacht. It has a crew and to travel the distance with happy passengers you probably need a journey plan and the right amount of fuel, food, drink and whatever else is going to keep the boat running. It takes more planning, more forethought and better communication. To run smoothly, everyone needs to know their job.

Essentially that’s the shift you need to be able to make to adopt a scaling mindset. You need to establish a clear plan and then focus on setting your team up for success.

If you don’t, it’s going to feel like a mess. Without strategic forethought, what gets looked after will come down to personal preference. Some things will be covered, some will get missed, the team will likely lose momentum, and the customer will inevitably be disappointed.

There are three key shifts to adopting a scaling approach:

Shift from short term to long term…

If you’re at the point where you need to adopt a scaling mindset, then you’ve successfully navigated the start-up phase. Which probably means you haven’t had the luxury of feeling as though you can think long term for some time. Short term, agile decision making is a difficult habit to break – it’s fun and energising after all. But you do need to break that habit and challenge yourself to think longer term – you need to think about the ecosystem you want to create and how your decisions will impact all of the facets of that. Starting with a 3-5 year plan and working out the steps you need to take to get there is a good place to start.

Shift to aligning with the culture you want... Think ‘how do I want it to feel to work here?’

Whether you like it or not, every decision you make in the top job has a significant impact on how it feels to work in your business. I see a lot of clients who have spent a lot of time designing cultures and landing on little more than a set of words. But the real work happens when you ask yourself how you really want people to feel when they come to work.

Challenging yourself to do this work in depth means asking yourself how you want people to behave day to day. Spend your time here and you’ll get a far more actionable set of answers. Adopting a scaling mindset is about slowing down your decisions to ensure they align with what’s important.

Shift from doing to leading

In those early start-up months and years, you need star performers. You need to be a star performer yourself. But maturing your approach away from doing and into leading is often the biggest shift.

Moving away from being a star performer is all about becoming a more intentional leader and it requires a very different approach. 

Intentional leadership is far more about learning to succeed through others, focussing less on yourself and more on your team. Challenging yourself to build trust and being brave enough to allow your team to focus on fewer things done really well.

So why adopt this approach?

The advantages of making this shift intentionally are myriad but there are a few things that really stand out.

Increased Efficiency

One of the biggest costs to a scaling business is a larger team and while many businesses ensure they have a team that allows them the capacity to grow, I see so many who aren’t getting the most out of those teams. 

Often that’s because the leaders aren’t sure of how to have the right impact at their level. They are stuck in the weeds and stepping on toes. Consciously adopting a scaling mindset and leading intentionally at the right level is a far more efficient and effective way of getting the most out of your team.

More Creativity

Set people up with the information they need to make the right decisions and create an environment where they feel safe and trusted and they will get creative about how to get the best outcome.

That will build more trust and give you the all-important space you need to get creative about what’s next!

Increased Revenue Potential  

With more people focussing on both the top and bottom line, feeling empowered to make decisions and get creative about how they deliver brilliant results, your revenue potential increases exponentially. 

Stick with it!

A scaling mindset is all about learning to step up and step back – to lead with intention rather than leading by accident.There will always be barriers to overcome…

Missed opportunities

When you’re in the detail it’s likely that you’ll see opportunities in the day to day. That positive feedback loop can make you feel as though that’s reason enough to stay there at the wrong level! But it’s likely those opportunities are marginal at best.

Part of setting your team up for success is about making sure they’re looking for those opportunities themselves, but more importantly that they feel like they have permission to share consistent trends and issues with you to inform the bigger picture, longer term strategy.

The pain of a seemingly slower pace 

To set the team up for success can feel like a lot of effort – and as most successful leaders value pace, this can feel like it’s going to require you to slow down more than you’re comfortable with. But time taken to direct, support, delegate and feedback effectively is time well spent.

Stepping up and out of the day to day and trusting a team to deliver will always feel clunky and slow to begin with. A big part of adopting a scaling mindset is about understanding that you are now building the frameworks to go the distance. 

Accept and acknowledge the resistance, remind yourself that’s what you’re feeling and challenge yourself to stay on track.

One foot in front of the other

Adopting a scaling mindset is a conscious shift and one that will force you to adopt a more intentional leadership style. It’s a key shift in your business growth journey and will help you to build a sustainable business ecosystem that stands on its own two feet and allows you to be your brilliant creative self at the right level.

It’s a different way of working that will feel, at times, like hard work. But don’t let that put you off, the key to change is to push through when it feels like stretch and challenge. 

Growth is change, and change can feel hard.

Time spent setting your team up for success will ultimately pay dividends over and over again.

If you'd like to think about how you can be a more intentional leader get in touch - hello@rebeccamorley.co.uk. I work with teams and individuals in fast growth and scaling business to develop brilliant leadership skills and build exceptional businesses.