As organizations and teams grow and add more people, it is easy to lose the camaraderie and personal connection between team members.
More remote work, people working in different locations, and the fast pace of concentrated tasks all contribute to the loss of what a small and tight-knit culture feels like.
The challenge for leaders is to make the organization feel smaller even as it grows and expands its human resources.
Several practices help leaders make larger organizations feel smaller to the people who work in them.
First and foremost is the frequency of communication between senior leaders, especially the CEO, and team members.
Using different channels and mediums, team members throughout the organization must hear from leaders with high frequency. These one and two-way exchanges can be brief and don’t have to be focused on the work.
Items to read, listen to, and watch can serve as a foundation for many other messages that connect passions, interests, current events, and organizational news of leaders and team members.
With the exception of political commentary, leaders sharing what they are seeing and thinking is almost always well received. The more messages that are personally directed, as opposed to group chain communications, the more they recreate the conversations team members experience in smaller enterprises.
Making the organization more familiar and smaller also depends on frequent open forums with Q&A. These can be virtual or live and involve some or all of the organization.
The more transparency and openness in these forums, the better. When team members get to ask the questions that matter to them and receive genuine and candid answers, they feel more connected to the organization and to each other.
Another way to make organizations feel smaller is to organize team members into smaller teams or pods and ask them to meet weekly to discuss their work, progress, and outcomes.
Creating real conversations as opposed to mere updates gives rise to the feeling that the place is small enough to engage issues honestly and openly.
Designing formats and processes to receive timely input on decisions, issues, and challenges is yet another way good leaders shrink the size of the organization.
Input can happen quickly and come from a large swath of people with a stake in the issue. A canvas asking people to weigh in by email, text, or voicemail with their views means they matter.
Be sure to circle back and close the loop on what people suggested, even if it runs contrary to the eventual outcome.
In some organizations and some circumstances, leaders can make themselves more visible to the team by showing up and engaging people directly. That, too, makes a larger enterprise feel more knowable and smaller.
When organizations feel smaller, they foster more connection, reduce anonymity, and create a strong sense of community. With a more personal experience, team members engage more fully and maintain a higher commitment to the enterprise.
No matter how many people work in an organization, leaders can make choices to give it a smaller feel. Sometimes, small is better than big.
A Daily Dispatch from the Front Lines of Leadership.
