Corporate Growing Pains

Co-Founder, Director, Partner and Consultant

In 2010, I co-founded the Business, Leadership and Management Consultancy Corporate Growing Pains [ABN 35 084 490 779]. As well as helping establish the business, I provided consultancy, corporate training and professional workshop services on strategy, values, communications, governance, organisational structures and evolution/change management, focused on corporate growth.

about Corporate growing pains

Corporate Growing Pains works with business leaders and their people to identify the passion bleeders and success barriers within organisations.

Corporate Growing Pains consultants individually design solutions that are consistent with:

• The leadership and management styles of an organisation’s people
• The long term values, directions and success of the organisation
• The size, nature and personality of the organisation
• The passions and ambitions of owners, shareholders, senior leaders and employees

Corporate Growing Pains consultants made recommendations and created implementation plans which:

• Identify and define the values and vision of the organisation
• Construct styles and structures for leadership and management
• Identify and design appropriate strategic and business plan approaches
• Provide corporate structures that work for an individual business
• Design reporting and measurement systems that encourage innovation and growth, and are not just weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual chores
• Identify the relationships needed for growth, risk management, reputation development and long-term success, and provide ways to create, maintain and improve those relationships
• Introduce innovation and growth systems that are evolutionary and developmental for the organisation’s people
• Incorporate social responsibilities into core business

Corporate Growing Pains helped with organisation, leadership, management, planning, communication and administration so that owners, Directors and leaders have the time, passion and energy to grow the business

Actions and achievements

Corporate Growing Pains was a niche consultancy and the work we undertook with clients was mainly confidential.

I did undertake work for Delaware North Companies International on bids for various catering and hospitality opportunities for the 2012 London Olympic Games, including work on KPI identification and reporting, risk management plans and registers, and drafting introductions and elements of the tender documents. I also undertook research on the effects of Ramadan on sports events, and drafted the Halal &Kosher, and Vegetarian Service Plans based on previous work for the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games Village Catering Bid.

As well as client work, I also:

• Established the business as a niche consultancy with my partner
• Developed the foundation strategy and business plans, including an innovative results-based pricing option for clients
• Drafted and submitted tender bids for client work
• Delivery of the National Seminar Series program on Creative Practice Management for the Australian Institute of Architects, May – July 2011
• Presented a Master Class at the CPA Australia Conference in Adelaide on Strategy thinking and planning, November 2011
• Delivered a workshop on strategic communication for Architects for the SA Branch, Australian Institute of Architects
• Completed brainstorming sessions for Ideas While You Sleep
• Developed e-communication incorporating the website, blogging and social media, including LinkedIn and Twitter
• Authored and published The Leader’s Beacon: The 55-minute guide to Leadership Communication for Verb Publishing (UK)
• Co-authored and published Major Signs of Corporate Growing Pains, as well as publishing blog posts for the Corporate Growing Pains website, including:
  • Dear CEO series on Communications
  • The Theory of Organisations, Management and Leadership
  • Associations and Member-Based Organisations: A New Way
  • Measure to Success, not to Do
  • Numerous posts on working in and with countries and organisations in the Asia Pacific

The Corporate Growing Pains Story

You have worked hard to make your business grow and should be feeling on top of the world.

In your mind, in conversations with your people, at home with your family, there are some constant themes:

• Meetings – there are so many, they don’t achieve, they waste time
• Bureaucracy – so much paperwork, more policies and procedures, constant reporting
• Non-Achievement – nothing achieved today, wasting time, can’t I just get on with it
• Time – so much time in the office, need more time for me and my family, there’s so much to do
• Pressure – why did I agree to this deadline, I’m not really stressed
• Work – it used to be fun and exciting, I’m passionate about this business but so much of it’s a headache

Deep down, you’re getting the feeling that you’re losing control, that the growth you’ve had may not have been such a good thing.

Don’t worry, every organisation goes through Growing Pains. Whether your business is going from small to medium, or medium to large, or entering new markets and fields of operations, there have been plenty who have gone through it before.

Remember your personal growing pains? You got through them with the help of your family and friends. They wanted to get involved. They trusted that you knew your own direction and helped by clearing the way for you to succeed.

We trust you know your business and want to help you get through your Corporate Growing Pains by identifying and removing passion bleeders and success barriers.

Corporate Growing Pains - the Commitments we made

• You are people, not just clients, and we aim to find ways that you can make your lives better, not just improve business results.
• We will be driven by our passion for our work and will ensure that our work helps you and your people focus on their passions also.
• Your business is as important to you as ours is to us, so when you invite us in to your business, we will treat it as our own.
• We intend our business to be enjoyable, practical, useful and profitable, and know that we can only achieve this by helping your business achieve the same.
• We will take full responsibility for our work and the success of what we do in the long term.
• We aren’t experts on everything and will never pretend to be. Even if we’ve already started working with you, if we believe we cannot give you value, we will tell you so.
• We will look for innovations and keep up to date with developments in our profession and in the world around us.
• We will maintain the highest standards of personal and business integrity, and respect the rights and view of others.
• Organisations exist through the consent and support of communities, and we will monitor community attitudes to ensure we meet expectations and help our clients to do the same