Case #2 Scaling Business to a New Market. How to Deal with Inner Obstacles? 

CLIENT

B2B Travel Tech company. Launched in 2014. At the time of signing the contract, the company worked only in the local market.

INLET CONDITIONS 

The growth of local market share stopped when it reached its maximum.

Understanding that the expansion of the company is crucial pushed the CEO (same as the owner) to create a Growth department aimed at developing new markets. He hired a Chief Growth Officer (CGO) to build a department from scratch. 

One and a half months later, CEO replaced CGO with a new hire. The next CGO began to work with less enthusiasm and involvement after 2 months. Time passed, but no significant action was taken to scale the business.

CONTRACT

Goal: to scale business to new markets in central and western Europe.

GETTING STARTED

We conducted deep interviews with the CEO, CGO, and other executives to better understand the current situation, as well as to determine their readiness for change. We highlighted the growth points following the results of the sessions.  

GROWTH POINTS

• The CEO faced a dilemma. He was aware of the need for change, but something inside him limited his actions.
• After two months of working, the CGO became less enthusiastic and engaged. He sabotaged some tasks. 
• The Growth department was designed partially.

DONE

• During 1:1 sessions, the owner explored his sense of anxiety for the first time. He realized that the anxiety limited his actions. As long as the business was small, it was possible to control it. But when the business needed to scale, it turned out that the capabilities of the CEO didn’t fit the challenges facing the organization. In this way, the sense of anxiety was a response to possible failure and the fear of being drawn into uncontrolled business growth.
• During one-to-one and pair sessions, the owner realized the gap between what he said and what he did.
• The point is that he delegated only managerial functions to the CGO and ignored the necessity of decision-making power to establish and manage the Growth department.
• His inner controller loaded the CGO with routine tasks, constantly interfere with the work process and insist on its way of decision.
• At the same time, the owner expected CGO to be a proactive and independent leader, who brings the fastest results.
• However, he didn’t meet his expectations, and it made him extremely disappointed. The owner was surprised, noting that a similar scenario activated with the first CGO whom he fired due to “incompetence”. That was something to think over.
• CGO realized a deeper reason for its frustration and sabotage. The incompatibility of the tasks to his role, the impossibility of trying his leadership potential, and lack of freedom and trust were some issues here. 

OUTCOMES 9 MONTHS LATER

The owner learned how to notice and recognize his anxiety. He worked intensely on his self-regulation skills to deal with anxiety.

The owner analyzed the actual and perceived risks of the future project, as well as defined the zones of his influence on them. He planned well-controlled sprints based on the zone of proximal development of a company he defined.

The near future of the company seemed to be more clear and less worrying.

• The owner and CGO set the intention to build effective cooperation within 6 months, and then reconsider it based on the results. They mutually agreed on all of the tasks of CGO, as well as defined the areas of key responsibility (KRA), the criteria for effective cooperation, deadlines, and ways of tracking them. 
• The owner began to track his behavior and actions to verify what he said. Over time, he noticed that the gap was decreasing. 
• The owner and CGO started to learn the skills of constructive communication and feedback. Informal meetings, where they were learning to communicate openly, helped to improve the quality of interaction and attunement with each other. Their interaction became more trusting and respectful. 
• The owner focused on strategic tasks and left the CGO more space for freedom in decision-making.
• The Growth Department was completely designed. Four contracts with gig retailers from Central and Western Europe were the first positive results of the team.
• The owner extended his contract with CGO because he was fulfilled with the outcome.