Scaling towards what?
Broken water waste pipe discharging onto rocks
Scaling toward what?
Keeping One Eye on the Prize
When your business started, the destination was probably crystal clear.
It was about solving a problem to improve something, challenge an industry norm, create products, services or experiences that aligned with your values and to make a meaningful contribution to the world.
In those early days the mission naturally lives in you and your small team. It doesn’t need to be written down or pinned to a wall. It was the reason you all got out of bed.
Amongst the media around World Ocean Day last week, I reflect on how off-course companies can go when growth alone is the ultimate prize. The UK water companies are set up to provide safe and sanitised water systems. Then growth arrived with new investors and new pressures. Since privatisation the UK water companies have paid out around £85bn to shareholders, and unacceptable levels of sewage and pollution discharges are increasing, killing wildlife and affecting our health too.
This mission creep doesn’t happen overnight, it happens in every decision as a business becomes more complicated, and as new people and ideas arrive. These come in the form of:
taking investment
hiring new team members
entering new markets
accepting new partnerships.
Should you move faster, grow bigger or scale harder? There is no right or wrong way to scale a business, it’s just all decisions carry consequences. This is where many purpose-driven businesses face their greatest challenge.
Not growth itself. But forgetting why they wanted to grow in the first place.
‘Change is coming’ flyer stuck to a green wall
The Gradual Drift Away From Purpose
The shift away from a mission is usually gradual, a compromise here, a shortcut there, a decision made for efficiency, another made to satisfy investors, another made because "that's just how business works."
Each decision appears reasonable in isolation but collectively they can take a company somewhere its founders never intended to go.
Margaret Heffernan has written extensively about how organisations can slowly lose sight of their purpose and become trapped by the pursuit of growth, power and short-term success. It happens in a thousand small decisions that individually seem sensible but collectively change the direction of travel.
Like a ship that is only one degree off course, you don't notice the difference immediately but over time, you can end up somewhere completely different from where you intended.
The Founder as Keeper of the Horizon
As founders and leaders, we often find ourselves holding multiple tensions at once; purpose and profit, impact and growth, people and performance, mission and commercial reality.
The temptation is to become consumed by what is immediately in front of us: cashflow, recruitment, operational challenges, customer demands, Board expectations and investor updates.
Yet one of our most important leadership responsibilities is to keep one eye fixed firmly on the prize of the mission, because it acts as a compass.
Keep growing round road sign with sunflower growing up it
Growth Is Not Neutral
Growth amplifies whatever already exists. If your culture is strong, growth magnifies it. If your leadership is distributed, growth strengthens it. If your purpose is deeply embedded, growth extends its reach.
But if your culture is fragile, your decision-making concentrated at the top, or your aspirational values are not peoples’ lived reality, growth will amplify those weaknesses too.
So ask yourself, what are you scaling towards?
Revenue is a measure of size.
Growth is a measure of speed.
Purpose is a measure of direction.
And how do you get there without losing your soul? (The very thing that made you attractive as a business to buy from, invest in and work with, in the first place?)
3 practices that can help
Align your current strategy with your purpose.
Build the mission into the business system, frameworks and decision making.
Be very clear about the destination and everyone’s role in reaching it.
Get in touch if you want to grow and strengthen purpose building practices in your business
Happy Mission building!
Sarah
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I’m Sarah, Founder of Loafspark.
Follow me for more insights on leading and scaling impact driven business with heart. At Loafspark we help mission-driven businesses put down roots in leadership, strategy, and culture for stronger, more sustainable growth. Consultancy, facilitation, programs and coaching for Female Founders £0.5-£20m and all senior BCorp/Social/Environmental leaders £20m+.