Do things that don’t scale, then scale them
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If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a leader say “that doesn’t scale”... I’d have a lot of dollars.
I once worked at a non-profit during a period of rapid expansion. Membership increased from about a hundred to over 1,000. In just a few years we went from a handful of staff to 42.
I took a 60% paycut to move from a bank to this NPO. Suffice to say my collection of real world Rands suffered. But it was a leadership incubator like no other. My collection of proverbial dollars grew tremendously.
We used to treat our volunteers like superstars. One tradition was hand written thank you cards. I remember the day we almost scrapped it. Some felt that “it doesn’t scale”. A few of us argued that it was an irreplaceable part of our culture and we fought hard to keep it.
It was a hell of an effort. Several of us wrote over a hundred notes. By the end of that week hands were aching but hearts were stirred. We scaled the unscalable.
I learned a crucial leadership lesson during that time. If you want to build an unparalleled organization. If you are allergic to mediocrity. If you want to pursue excellence even as you grow, then you have to do what most people assume is impossible:
Do things that don’t scale.
Then figure out a way to scale them.
I took a 60% paycut to move from a bank to this NPO. Suffice to say my collection of real world Rands suffered. But it was a leadership incubator like no other. My collection of proverbial dollars grew tremendously.
We used to treat our volunteers like superstars. One tradition was hand written thank you cards. I remember the day we almost scrapped it. Some felt that “it doesn’t scale”. A few of us argued that it was an irreplaceable part of our culture and we fought hard to keep it.
It was a hell of an effort. Several of us wrote over a hundred notes. By the end of that week hands were aching but hearts were stirred. We scaled the unscalable.
I learned a crucial leadership lesson during that time. If you want to build an unparalleled organization. If you are allergic to mediocrity. If you want to pursue excellence even as you grow, then you have to do what most people assume is impossible:
Do things that don’t scale.
Then figure out a way to scale them.