So many businesses can trace their stories of success back to “the good old days” where they were small, entrepreneurial, knew everyone and they all understood how the business works and how it serves their customers. Usually the founders openly lived their personal values through the company, giving people confidence to fit in. But then, as they succeed, they grow, and all these success factors gradually disappears. Initially it feels like progress – they are becoming more professional. It’s only later that the typical “large company” problems surface at board level, by which time the root causes are firmly entrenched into the way the organisation works. Breaking down these structural barriers is a challenge, but breaking down the mental barriers that leaders hold, must receive equal deliberate efforts in order to regain the edge needed to outmanoeuvre the competition.
In this video, Tracey Booysen, Executive of Customer Experience at Direct Axis shares how their early success lead to such growth, which was followed by some not so wise yet very common structural practices that ultimately made them “individually efficient but jointly ineffective”. This spilled over into their customer experience which ultimately negatively impacted their business. Only once they realised that something drastically different is needed did they start challenging their own mental models of management and started being very brave – they started to break their own rules. And the results astonished everyone.
