Dealing with growth pains

Growing a company is tough. I found (or we as a company did, I should say) that quite often things get lost in the shuffle of managing a business. And I don’t mean small things like remembering to blog or twitter often, or maybe to order coffee supplies every once in a while. I mean it’s easy to forget the crucial bits, things like why you started the company in the first place.

A few years ago when we started there weren’t that many companies like ourselves out there. These days, there’s quite a few. I feel it is important to share one very important thought we sometimes overlook: you should never forget where you came from, why you are where here, and where you want to go next.

Our solution, CEPs

When we first started (when there was only 4 of us) I thought it would be a good idea to keep an updated list of Concerns, Expectations and Priorities [1]. So we created that list in our private wiki (more on how we use our wiki in a future post). Every one of us went in and wrote down his concerns, expectations and priorities.

I feel like writing these things down was almost as important as writing down our core values for several reasons. One, it made us actually consciously communicate what we want to get out of the company (personal satisfaction, money, experiences). Two: it made us understand others better, because quite often, communicating personal wishes is a pain. And three, it became an unconscious goal to meet these challenges.

A few months ago we went through the first few lines we each wrote when we got started. Not only had we taken care of most of the Concerns, Expectations and Priorities we each had, we found we had surpassed them. Not only was it a realization of a job well done, it was also a great motivator for the future.

Concluding thoughts

How often do you have the chance to know what others really need in order to work passionately? Or how they feel the company you’re on should be moving? I imagine not a lot of large companies let everyone dictate direction. But small companies and studios definitely can – and should – let people chime in and take the helm. We chose to use our CEP list to keep everyone focused (even if unconsciously) on our goals. How do you do it in your company? Share a story, if you have one, of dealing with business growth pains in the comments – thanks!

[1]: For those curious, we had a different name for it in portuguese (PEP). This is actually a translation of that name. [2]: The photo in this post (of a slide on Sagmeister’s presentation on Happiness in Design) is by karmagirl on Flickr.