Letting Go To Grow

"You are great leaders, but terrible managers"

Intentional in its 11th year, is moving into its 3rd life. Version 1 was solo with the Founder, Version 2 saw me join as co-director, and Version 3 is now me leading solo.

The weak point of 2.0, was its greatest strength; having 2 collaborative leaders, with wildly different strengths. Initially this delivered exponential growth, as we scaled it created confusion, stifled autonomy and plateau'd growth; "you are great leaders, but terrible managers" is the feedback that will always ring in my ears.

Version 2.0 kicked off in 2015, and for the next 3 years we saw exponential growth, doubling the Revenue and team, we were scaling profitably.

Then our hockey stick in the making graph tapered off. Covid years brought 1 bad, 1 amazing; 2022 the best chance to re-assess our position and while not hockey stick, I'm encouraged vs 2019 that we're back to scaling profitably.

Our greatest strength during that 2015-2017 window was the combined strengths of Adam & I.  There was definitely 'teething issues' in us working together, initially we both attended client meetings, having different styles, and initially we both managed ad accounts. Once we aligned on job functions, it felt like the closest I've worked over a significant time period 'in flow'.

But then it stopped...

We made our first senior hires for the agency, had to develop new ways of working, we had our first client disagreement, first HR challenges, our 'specialist' market begun to fill up, the industry knowledge of digital increased, competition was tougher, we begun to see the Rule of 3 & 10 play out in real time.

At least at the time I believed these were the reasons that we stopped growing.

It's likely had Covid not happened, in 2020 everything that happened in 2022 would've played out. The founder was fatigued, the team was tense, everything felt hard; the opposite of flow.

The Covid years brought us together as a team, the shared experience to open the books for clarity on our danger zones and the decisions we made as collective. While it was draining, it was the planting of seeds for future revelation; on asking better questions, on listening to the answers.

The sudden growth however exposed this warts and all. While we continued to deliver incredible results for our clients, the best analogy I could give is that we had been 'running on empty' and it wasn't simply a case of just filling things up again, damage had been done throughout the vehicle, we needed a new engine.

As I had the opportunity to spend increased 1-1 time with each team member towards the end of 2021, those seeds of revelation from early 2021 turned into bricks of revelation.

A core value we strive for at Intentional is leadership,  as a leadership team of two we were delivering the exact opposite. The team felt blocked, not heard, over-ridden, confused, frustrated.

We had not evolved our strengths to include the team, and these grew to become the biggest weakness. From our end we were wondering why is nobody speaking up or pulling the trigger on their ideas.

The bricks really hit when 3 of our team, 2 most senior and another 1 directly mentored by me all shared they were leaving in the space of 1 week.

The highs of 2021 was starting to feel like the best it would ever be.

I realised I had to change, to democratise decisions, to work in public, this combined with the team leading operations based decisions, I don't have the domain knowledge at their level and so I leaned on the team to drive things forward.

If I sum up the difference, I learned to let go of the decision making process, to allow the team to live or die by their decisions. The fruit of this was exponential growth in the team, 1 of the senior team members seeing the shift in culture made the decision to stay, we created a new working arrangement, I was listening and letting the team decide, I started to feel in flow again.

What I hadn't shared in my End of an Era post, was that when Adam came to share he was leaving the company, I was going to share with him a revised Org. Structure for the Service business that did not include him! I had seen having 2 voices, while we always felt complimentary, the reality was we think & speak differently and that led to the stunted growth.

In this new era, the Intentional 3.0, I've learned to let go. To give decision making accountability & responsibility to the team. It's been incredibly hard to stop the 'saviour complex' I have to stop myself most days, and the team are clearly aware of this by un-inviting me to meetings!

Our forecast for FY23 means we will shift gear again. This time I feel prepared to allow our growth to flow.