Here are three things I spotted recently for founders in scaling businesses to think about:

1. ​Zola’s decision-making method​
Often when debating decisions extroverts tend to dominate the discussions, while people with differing opinions sometimes feel silenced. This article explains how Zola uses a structured voting and debate process to make big decisions. Their approach adds genuine diversity of thinking to their decision-making while building team unity.

My take: I talk a lot about decision-making in my work. In fact this post was one of the most read from Build in 2023. But often it’s hard to know what this looks like in real life, so this article is helpful to show a real decision-making process in action.

2. How to fail at influencing culture​
Business orthodoxy suggests that devising strategy, planning, executing, measuring and correcting happens in neat cycles (who’s doing annual planning now?). But in reality life moves on faster than those cycles can happen. Geoff Marlow argues the only solution is embedding a culture of ongoing change, tightly coupling sense-making, decision-making and action.

My take: I love Geoff’s writing and thinking. In this piece he neatly nails four ways that businesses attempt to but fail in shaping their futures: “they all fail to focus precisely enough and deeply enough on ensuring that the actual key influencers in the organisation”. Keep that top of mind when thinking about change.

3. FOMO at work​
Fear of missing out (FOMO) happens when people miss events involving people they value. It comes from perceiving missed opportunities for bonding and concerns about how this could damage future relationships. People get more FOMO when they miss events that could have led to stronger bonding, even if the event itself seems unenjoyable – for example a funeral – suggesting that FOMO stems from anxiety about potential social costs rather than just missing a fun time.

My take: This caught my eye as I was doing some work on a governance structure for a client. It got me thinking about why people wanted to be part of the various forums that we are developing. Sometimes it’s not for the obvious or articulated reasons. That meant a need to think about how to create other opportunities for the bonding that people outside the forums felt they were missing out on.