Enabling a start-up to grow quickly

Case of a fast growing start-up company in the context of Neuwaldegg’s consulting for agile organisations.

The highly successful inno­va­tion start-up of a muni­cipal infra­struc­ture service provider is growing rapidly. The number of employees doubles annu­ally. The struc­ture must be adapted to rapid growth and inter­na­tio­na­li­sa­tion. However, the concern is that the great asset of the culture that has grown cannot be preserved if the family start-up becomes a profes­sio­na­lised company. Follo­wing an evalua­tion, the group ordered external consul­ting for its young wild start-up.

Learning to grow

The remit: to support the change in terms of reor­ga­ni­sing the struc­ture, leader­ship and culture.
With three aims:

1. An adap­tive orga­ni­sa­tional struc­ture that can conti­nuously adapt to future growth without requi­ring new reorganisations.
2. To profes­sio­na­lise leader­ship – many mana­gers have no expe­ri­ence and there is no common vision for leadership.
3. To preserve and further develop the cultural elements that distin­guish the start-up.

A remit as a moving target

Toge­ther with the core team from the orga­ni­sa­tion, we decide on an agile consul­ting approach. Since the brie­fing for the remit is always adapted to the company’s current deve­lo­p­ments, we rely on two things: flexible but emphatic clari­fi­ca­tion and adapt­a­tion of the remit conti­nuously during the process and the rapid enab­ling of the system.
We achieve this by with­dra­wing as consul­tants from the begin­ning. The first all-hands work­shop is not faci­li­tated by us. We develop the design and hand it over to the core team, which imple­ments it bril­li­antly – without much expe­ri­ence in faci­li­ta­ting. Toge­ther with the manage­ment board, we work out the common visions and direc­tions in the three project themes. In an orga­ni­sa­tional diagnosis using focus inter­views, we reflect the resources, blind spots and areas of deve­lo­p­ment in the three areas back to the system. A DIY booklet outlines the objec­tives for the areas of deve­lo­p­ment and provides recom­men­da­tions for tailor-made inter­ven­tions. The core team is given the booklet with the tools resul­ting from the consul­tancy and then confi­dently starts imple­men­ting it. We are still available as a spar­ring partner if required.

“They can do it!”– without us

This project taught us pati­ence and curio­sity. It’s not so easy when a remit constantly changes. The good coope­ra­tion with the core team and the willing­ness to conti­nuously adapt the goals and the approach were success factors. The same applies to the streng­thening of self-compe­tence from the very begin­ning. The DIY designs with brie­fings and retro­s­pec­tives with the imple­menters are compa­tible with the menta­lity and compe­tence of a start-up: We can do it! Our profes­sional spar­ring helps the system to pay atten­tion not to the impres­sion but to the effect and system dynamics.

Franziska Fink

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