The smallest person I met in 2019 has been our new addition to the family, whom we called Zara. She was very punctual with her arrival last month. To welcome Zara into this big world here are three lessons from July on the notion of ‘small’: 

As small as a company of one

Jim Collins studied the landscape of fallen big companies. He suggests one stage of the trajectory being the “undisciplined pursuit of more”. Paul Jarvis tackles this notion from a totally different angle – small companies are managing to be successful by avoiding harmful growth (a more disciplined pursuit of more). His book, Company of one, suggests that the rise of companies made up of a few individuals, or even a single individual, could be the next big thing in business. 

There are benefits in being small. After several years of having people ‘reporting to me’ (as we say in corporate lingo), I was offered a role with no direct reports and with the brief of working cross-functionally. Suddenly I’m a team of one, overwhelmed and excited. Overwhelmed at needing to convince anyone to work with me and excited that I had to work with anyone who shared the same vision and was excited enough to set aside a few hours to contribute to the first deliverable. No hard obligation to follow my lead. Only if you care enough to do so!

Both the idea of staying small and the idea of amplifying the individuals’ strengths were key. I did not resort to establish big committees with a complicated set of roles, and at the same time I worked with others to create a space where any valid idea could grow. The outcome has exceeded my expectations and I am looking forward to the next sprint as I get back to work later in August. 

As small as the smallest viable audience

It’s one thing to avoid harmful growth when you are still small, but how do you pursue growth in a disciplined way when your years of success have made you scale up already? On an HBR IdeaCast Ranjay Gulati shares his research on how to find (and keep) your company’s soul. He suggests three key principles – returning to the original intent of the company, being clear on who the customer is and getting the rest of the team excited to come to work every day.

Homing in on the marketing side of things, Seth Godin presents the idea of the smallest viable audience in his most recent book. He writes about being specific on the market you want to serve, against trying to play for everyone. He does not present this as one more way to be smarter than the competition. His view is more about being realistic on what you can really achieve. As the author suggests we often hide behind everyone and anyone rather than be specific. Being specific on who we are targeting and aiming to serve will make it easier to determine whether it worked or it didn’t.

Small is beautiful and the price of growing up

My three-year-old son has a t-shirt which reads “Never Grow Up”. If I could I would wear it as my under-vest everyday. A beautiful blog I stumbled upon last month has been Grown and Gathered by Matt and Lentil. Recently they published a book called The Village. In it they celebrate village life in all its fullness. I come from the smallest country in Europe, which in 2019 is forecasted to register the highest rate of economic growth in the EU. One thing that is special about Malta is its smallness. What Matt and Lentil notice in their review of village life reminds me of Malta. However the Malta of late is growing up and opting to move away from what made it beautiful. At times its growth seems to be an undisciplined pursuit of more. Some argue that it has even lost (or rather sold) its soul.  

If only we realised the value of being small and the big price of growing out of it. One hopes that individuals, companies and even countries avoid going through the same trajectory as the big companies Jim Collins wrote about, all those that came falling down. One hopes that we all manage to find (and keep) our soul.