No says Scott Berkun. But…
There are problems with any company growing large. A culture shift from going from small to big. Many people talk about how great rapid growth is and obviously rapid growth usually follows other good things (like growing sales and revenues). There is a dynamic culture shift happens when companies get bigger. But what is little studied is what happens to a large company that explodes.
That’s what happened to Microsoft in the 90’s and you saw their culture shift. You can see it starting at Google as their growth goes from aggressive to explosive.
What can HR do to help a company deal with this. Berkun has a good start of what not to do.
- Believing no one has been at the center of the tech-universe before.
- Inability to take a non self-centric view of the world.
- Depending on power and intimidation, more than intelligence and wisdom.
- Failing to find ways to stay humble & hungry while being dominant.
- Focusing more on beating rivals than satisfying customers.
- Underestimating how decisions will be received by the rest of the world.
And I like that list. I don’t think Google will go down that path but I think they were also lucky to see what has happened to other tech companies that forget what got them to the point where they became super explosive.
