Founders and CEOs talk a lot about scaling businesses, but typically pay a lot less attention to building the organisation that lies behind any successfully scaled business.
And when the organisation is talked about, it's often considered in terms of organisational structure, reporting lines and job descriptions.
This is just one way of looking at an organisation and isn't the right starting point for creating a resilient scaling organisation.
Why does this matter?
The key to answering that question lies in the creation of a sustainable and resilient business - one that is able to thrive through the inevitable shocks, unpredictable events and setbacks that happen.
That sustainability and resilience comes from the people that make up any business. It comes from the way they collaborate to generate value in the present, anticipate potential futures and respond to the unanticipated events that hit every business.
But even then, a business isn't merely the sum total of their individual contributions.
A sustainable and resilient business comes from the added value that being an effective organisation generates - bringing together the work of many people within an organising framework that gives focus, agility and coherence.
An organisation is a container which holds everything that binds people and their work together. The container provides boundaries for the organisation as a system. It's stuffed full of things that make each organisation unique and enable people within the organisation to feel belonging, collaborate effectively and generate value.
Some of those things are tangible, like systems, tools, artefacts and process. Others are less tangible, such as culture, purpose and behaviours.
I created the B3 framework® to help leaders build brilliant businesses.
I knew from experience that getting the business foundations right early in the scaling journey can significantly reduces the challenges ahead.
The framework brings together every facet of what it takes to holistically scale a business into a simple yet powerful framework. It sets out the elements that must be in place to build a business that’s sustainable and delivers consistently.
It doesn’t tell you must create each of those elements, nor the tools, techniques or methods you should use. This helps avoid the overly prescriptive nature of many approaches to organisational design and business scaling.
It provides flexibility for leaders to develop their own implementation, while ensuring a coherent and high performing business throughout the scaling journey.
The beta version of the B3 framework is now live to download from my website.
