Want Impact? Need Momentum.
Your work is important. A true endeavour.
It’s oriented to the long term.
It’s built on principles of trust, creativity, entrepreneurial energy. It’s rooted in an actual place. It will make the community stronger. And it's borne of a product people will love.
Who knows, you might change an entire industry.
But delivering is / will be a challenge. Starting up is hard.
Success requires momentum.
Momentum = velocity x mass.
Big companies have mass. But lack velocity.
Little companies have velocity. But lack mass.
You have velocity. Agility. You are in constant motion.
But you lack mass.
What can you do to lend mass to your venture, to increase your momentum and achieve your impact?
1) You Get What You Pay For.
Little companies enjoy mass when their few cogs are appropriately aligned. That means the team, whatever the size and number, must share an objective.
And this must be reinforced with incentives.
Incentives are important. We are simple beings. Pay for time and I’ll work to time. Reward for outcomes and I’ll work to outcome. For a little company to ‘mass’ around an idea, everyone must work to a common outcome. As one team.
Work as independent contractors and you’re not one team, however close you are. You’re slightly disparate cogs.
Think shoal of fish, swimming as one. Aligned and moving in one direction, with one goal.
But, of course, achieving this might require shifting perspectives, changing ideas, selling an alternate vision to people who count.
2) Be A Business, Not A Project.
You are building a big house. And big houses sit on deep foundations. You’re laying these now. But your foundations are equally important.
It’s a business, not a project - as you know.
If you haven’t, incorporate it. Legally. Make the company, the business, real. It is an important building block. it will lend a dimension of support and purpose and orientation to what you do. And when you incorporate it, get the consultants, the contractors, into it. Employ them. It need not be big and unwieldy. Quite the opposite. Lean, all the way. The shoal of fish will orientate better from a single place. Make that Your Company Ltd.
But making this shift might require bigger fish to think / act / do differently…
3) Get The Big Fish Swimming To Your Tune.
A little business must maximise its strengths.
The more aligned each and every stakeholder - whether they be employee, supplier, friend or investor - the greater your impact.
This is about removing friction. And resistance.
If you leave stakeholder fish to swim on the outside, or to their own tune, you’re creating friction. Even subtly. And that messes with the flow.
And potentially worse.
Delivering on your vision is about momentum, yes, but managing risk too.
Big fish swimming on the outside are a danger.
Fish capable of shitting over the whole shoal must be managed.
Get all the fish - especially the biggest fish - swimming on the inside, swimming to your beat. And with it manage the risks.
Whether they want an arms length relationship or not, get them to a place where you manage them.
This will not be easy. But it’s necessary - not least to formalise everything discussed above. And it is possible.
Manage Your Key Stakeholders (as if they’re three year olds!)
Getting the big fish on the inside is a sales challenge.
You know this. But might be a little resistant.
How?
Tell them a story which starts where they are. Link what you’re doing to what they’re doing and the mark they’re trying to leave. And play the tune consistently.
Communicate the story in creative ways. Nobody reads monthly reports. The brain notices the incongruous, the surprising.
You need to stroke their slippery scaly, egos - subtly.
You need to give them (even if only) occasional problems to solve.
And what works for three year olds, works for 63 year olds. Give them choices, not questions. No more ‘what time good for a call?’ but rather ‘Is it easier to speak on Sunday morning or Sunday night?”. And this is true for everything - choices that it is. Leave a busy person to do their thinking and they’ll think elsewhere. Channel them and they’ll think for you. ‘Choose this window or that’, ‘These soft furnishings or that?’. ‘Choose this or that?’.
Ask a three year old ‘what do you want for dinner?’ and you might get an answer. Or a fight. Or nothing. Ask them ‘fish fingers or sausages?’. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Your three year old and 63 year old… they aren’t that different
If you want these thoughts turned into a plan. Ask. I will do it for you.
What you’re doing is important.