Every organization is unique! Big, small, young, mature. On a weekend recently I decided to sit back and figure out the differences between the DNA of a startup and the DNA of a mature organization. I thought for a while and could not find anything distinguishing! I decided I would look though news from organizations on the public wires as examples to distinguish their characteristics.
The most commonly used word that I came across in the new content on mature organizations was “synergy”. But synergy means there are common strengths and these strengths align. I have seen many a teams in a tug of war, they both have strengths and they all work whole heartedly only to stay in the same position without moving one way or the other. So could they mean “alignment”? May be… COLLABORATION and COORDINATION? That was my “aah ha” moment, I thought that makes sense, benches of managers are taught over and over the art of leading, or what I call the sociology of creating influence and change. Successful change only occurs through collaboration and coordination.
I then started to search literature on startups and smaller organizations! A common theme that stood out was the desire to met a distinctly different or ancillary (yet different) need created by the products from the large corporations. So why was it that the large mature corporations miss the opportunity? They have smart people, they foster entrepreneurial spirit, they have deep pockets, then what’s so different. The answer was some what obvious, AGILITY and SERVICE!
All mature corporations start as startups at some point with the much needed agility, one on one customer service, as they begin to grow agility took back seats… rightfully so! The scale and scope forcing them to create greater collaboration and coordination between the moving parts of the organization. It would be fascinating to turbo charge an organization with the right mix of coordination and agility!
