Better Before Bigger

Age of Empires taught me about organisational development.

“Yippee-ki-yay!” exclaimed Steve, as his pixelated army destroyed the final few buildings of my empire.

“Geez. How’d you get so good at this game, Steveo?”, I asked.

“Love and dedication. How’d you get so bad?”, jested Steve.

“Urgh, I thought I had you this time. My army was twice the size of yours!”

“You do realise you can upgrade your civilisation, right? You were fighting my Iron Age legions with Stone Age clubman.”

As my head fell into my hands, something in my head clicked.

In organisations, it is easy to conflate growth and development.

Suggests Ackoff:

“Growth and development are not the same thing. Neither is necessary for the other. A rubbish heap can grow, but it doesn’t develop. Artists can develop without growing. Nevertheless, many managers take development to be the same as growth.

To grow is to increase in size or number. To develop is to increase one’s ability and desire to satisfy one’s own needs and desires, and those of others.

Development is more a matter of learning than earning. It has less to do with how much one has, than how much one can do with whatever one has.”

An HR department may be given a target of hiring more staff. Whilst more staff may help the organisation grow in size, it may not help the organisation develop its ability to achieve its agreed goal.

If the organisation’s goal is to increase profits now and in the future, increasing staff won’t necessarily help.

If there isn’t a queue of customers waiting to be served, then increasing staff will only increase costs. We need to instead understand why customers aren’t coming to us - and focus development there.

If there is a queue of customers waiting to be served, we then need to understand where our rate-limiting step is - and focus development here.

The takeaway? Growth is about getting bigger. Development is about getting better (in the context of a goal). Don’t bring a clubman to a legion fight.

This article was inspired by Ackoff’s Management in Small Doses. Quotes adapted for brevity.