{"id":3798,"date":"2024-09-23T12:14:27","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T10:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/through-the-kaleidoscope\/"},"modified":"2024-09-23T12:14:29","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T10:14:29","slug":"through-the-kaleidoscope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/through-the-kaleidoscope\/","title":{"rendered":"Through the kaleidoscope: the twists and turns of growing a business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Are you trying to visualise the future of your company? No matter how hard you squint, does it feel like your vision is blurred? It can feel a bit like peering down a kaleidoscope; it can seem confusing at first with optical illusions and colliding colours. With chaotic, changing images it\u2019s easy to lose focus \u2013 and interest \u2013 and growing our companies can begin to feel tiresome, rather than the joy of the original crusade. However, with a few small tweaks and twists the patterns can be aligned and voil\u00e0!, it can all become clear and you can move forward again with a renewed passion to make amazing things happen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3260 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/shutterstock_1668413674-scaled-1.jpg\" alt=\"Through the kaleidoscope: the twists and turns of growing a business\" width=\"458\" height=\"306\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Starting a business can be an exciting time and growing it should be equally so. And if your company is based on your own idea, something that you truly believe will make something better, it is understandable that you want to be right at the very heart of things. Your vision can be a bright, wonderful thing and to begin with your purpose and your journey can appear clear as day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As all seasoned entrepreneurs will tell you, there are different life-cycle stages to anything that grows. First of all, you form your company and then it begins to survive. So far, so good: your initial vision is still valid and you have probably acquired a small team to support you and a few shiny corporate toys to show the world how successful you are.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As things progress and succeed, the urge to grow more is the next natural step in the life cycle. You will begin to ask questions, such as \u201cwhere else can I go?\u201d, \u201chow can I do more?\u201d. You\u2019re now on the next step of your journey \u2013\u00a0 \u2018establishing ground\u2019 \u2013 and this should be when you drive a more consistent and predictable growth curve.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Seeing the orders flood in and your company begin to fly can be an exhilarating ride and when you believe in something as much as you do (it\u2019s your baby after all), nothing can take away that feeling of fulfilment. However, it\u2019s quite common at this stage to find you\u2019re enjoying the adrenaline of the ride so much that you become totally immersed in every tiny part of the process. And this is when basic business capabilities, such as organisational structure, value creation and decision-making<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> spiral out of control. Suddenly, the ride is no longer quite so much fun.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This can leave you exhausted, isolated from your team and disconnected from the picture you wished to create, sometimes wishing you had never started your business in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Wyseminds-Final-Illustrations-V2_Plan-de-travail-16-1.svg\" width=\"170\" height=\"113\" \/>Is this ringing true? Take a pause from this blog and take our growth evaluation to determine the phase of growth your business is in and where there might be some misalignment. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wyseminds.com\/growthevaluation\">Get your growth guide &gt;<\/a><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No matter what your start-up is \u2013 the patterns for success or failure are the same depending on the growth phase you find yourself in. As you begin to take your start-up to the next level, a more established position, identifying and understanding these patterns are key to greater success.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They will also help you to recognise that if things do begin to unravel, that it is not your fault. As the founder you will feel that you need to \u2018own\u2019 everything, even the blame, as Wyseminds resident behavioural psychologist Henk Jansen says:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s normal human behaviour to feed this operational level of your business. We begin to accept the belief that being on a treadmill and building our business by always \u201cdoing\u201d is the \u201centrepreneur way\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, the good news is that with a few simple realignments, you can also \u2018own\u2019 renewed energy, vision and success.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Question, question, question<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Understanding and accepting that you cannot do everything is the first important step on your growth journey. And while crystal balls are for fairy tales, aligning known capabilities to support your company&#8217;s growth and asking a few key questions \u2013 making a few twists of the kaleidoscope \u2013 can give you a renewed focus and a clearer, more seamless path to your dream.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>There should be 3 twists to the kaleidoscope<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is your pattern for growth in line with the life cycle of your business? To consider the Pareto theory, what are the three twists or adjustments that could give you 80% of the picture you need? Success is created by aligning these three things \u2013 commonly organisational structure, value and decision-making \u2013 to the growth phase you are in.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is their misalignment that will block your path to victory so what adjustments can you make to support your company\u2019s growth?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3261 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/shutterstock_105494294-scaled-1.jpg\" alt=\"Through the kaleidoscope: the twists and turns of growing a business\" width=\"792\" height=\"594\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First of all, consider where the pressure points are and use this knowledge to make the first twists of the kaleidoscope. Ask questions of yourself and your team.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Your organisational structure<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Have you empowered your team? Can you expand their roles and give them accountability?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Your value<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Giving your ecosystem independence, investing in them and giving increased responsibility grows accountability. Helping them to understand their role in value creation can bring those blurred lines back into focus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>How decisions are made<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Again, look at your organisational structure. Who is responsible for the big decisions and how easy is it to make them?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Poetry in motion<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, next time you\u2019re squinting into the future and feeling dazzled, remember the kaleidoscope \u2013 derived from ancient Greek, incorporating <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">kalos<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (beauty), <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">eidos<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (form or shape) and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">scope<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (to look or examine) \u2013 collectively meaning an observation of beautiful forms. For an entrepreneur, surely, there\u2019s nothing more beautiful than a business running smoothly and making a profit?<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To take part in a Wyseminds evaluation, and to find out which realignments are right for your company, click <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/growthevaluation\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are you trying to visualise the future of your company? No matter how hard you squint, does it feel like your vision is blurred? It can feel a bit like peering down a kaleidoscope; it can seem confusing at first with optical illusions and colliding colours. With chaotic, changing images it\u2019s easy to lose focus [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[60,46,36,37,71,87,40,78],"class_list":["post-3798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-business-growth","tag-business-model","tag-entrepreneur","tag-female-entrepreneur","tag-freedom","tag-growth-evaluation","tag-julie-perkins","tag-pareto-principle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3802,"href":"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798\/revisions\/3802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyseminds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}