As she drove, Beck reflected on all that had transpired in her career since she earned her MBA in 2002. She had started her business, Beck Consulting Corporation (BCC) a year after graduation. Over the next 11 years, her consulting business, which ranged from moving offices to entire companies to new locations, had grown from a one-person consultancy to a successful private company employing 40 people. Beck had reason to feel that she had "made it. But she also felt that she could not simply sit back and savor her success. Her business continued to have opportunities for growth. As Beck explained, The real joy for me comes from founding and growing a business. We are a growing company, and we need sparks of excitement that come from change, from going to the next level. Opening new offices, going national or international, expanding the services we offer, going publicall these things would give us as a company more reasons to be proud. People here are invested in the future. We can't get to the future by standing still. While the business was prospering, its growth posed urgent problems. For the first time, Beck felt she needed to add another layer of management to her organization. In addition, Beck wasn't sure that the compensation and incentive plans currently in place were appropriate for this new layer and she wondered if they needed to develop more formalized work systems and processes. However, she also worried that more hierarchy and formalization would ruin the carefully constructed culture of independent thinkers at her company. Beck had built her business by maintaining close contact with both employees and clients. Her vivacious personality, intelligence, and "can-do" attitude set the tone for her company. Beck's personal touch was one of the major motivators for her staff and one of the selling points for the company's services. The central question in Beck's mind was how to grow the business without losing the hands-on style that had made the company successful. An Easy Way to Start a Consulting Company For Marilyn Beck running a relocation company was a perfect fit. She had moved several times in the United States and internationally with her late husband. In 1998, she settled in the Boston area. She earned her MBA part time while holding down a job and raising two children. Throughout the 1990s she held administrative management positions at a variety of Boston law firms. As it happened, a common denominator of all her jobs was moving the office. As Beck recalled, All the firms I worked for made major moves, and I ended up managing them. I became something of an expert at it. I preferred the project management aspect of moving rather than the day-to-day maintenance tasks. In August 2002, at the end of her third year of her part-time MBA program, Beck was ready for a change. She had become increasingly impatient with the rigid hierarchies she saw in the legal firms where she worked. She felt it took too long to make decisions and that steep hierarchies promoted a lack of accountability. Beck explained: One reason I really don't like hierarchies is their lack of immediate decision making. One example that had serious repercussions was when I worked at a law firm and we had a bad snow storm. I wanted to send people home early, but my boss had to go to his boss and on up the chain. By the time I got out of there, I ended up with a seven-hour drive home. The other part of it for me, is that I don't automatically respect someone with a title; I'm more interested in a meritocracy. The law firms couldn't give underlings decision making authority because they weren't lawyers. Conversely, I remember a time I was lugging huge water bottles to the cooler and the big, strapping, male lawyers walked right by menot one stopped to help. Being a partner took precedence over being a person. Those kinds of separations don't make for a cohesive team. I wanted to create a place where I didn't have to live by those rules. She felt she could be successful if she put all her experience with corporate relocation to work in a consulting business. Beck, however, was not sure how to get started. In 2003, she had the answer. An office manager from a large Boston law firm called Beck to see if she'd be interested in organizing their upcoming move. The call came as a result of a networking group that Beck had started while she was working for a law firm in Washington D.C. Beck explained the connections that led to her first consulting job: I was working for the D.C. satellite office of a large Boston law firm. There was one other Boston firm that also had a satellite office, so I started a lunch group that brought together managers from both companies. I felt as though we dealt with similar issues and could benefit from sharing experiences. I got to know the office manager of the other firm pretty well. A couple of years later, after I'd moved back to Boston, the office manager from the Boston firm happened to be talking to the DC office manager. The Boston office manager was looking for someone to manage the firm's move, and my DC friend immediately recommended me. I interviewed for the job along with about eight other people. The hiring manager told me later that even though he'd interviewed people with a lot more experience, he said my interpersonal skills were so strong that they decided to offer the job to me. The company offered Beck either a full-time one-year contract to move its 950-member workforce, or to serve as an independent contractor. As Beck recalled, There I was wondering how to start consulting and this job dropped in my lap. I decided to go in as an independent contractor. I remember thinking-what easier way to start a consulting company? Of course, I didn't think then of what being a consultant meant. Later, I realized that, in addition to delivering services, I would have to send out invoices, set up a bookkeeping system, and find more clients. Beck set up shop in her home and worked independently on small projects until 2007 when she accepted a large job at a large, international university that eventually developed into a two-year commitment. She hired several temporary employees to help coordinate the move, but quickly realized that she would need permanent help. Beck hired Susan Smith, a facility management specialist from a large telecommunications company. Smith had a degree in interior design and experience with business furnishings that complemented Beck's business degree and relocation skills. Although Beck was happy to gain an employee with Smith's background, hiring a full-time employee was unsettling. As Beck explained, Hiring Susan, my first permanent employee, was the first big milestone for the business. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I was suddenly responsible for someone else- for her familyfor her livelihood. It was a combination of worrying about not having enough work for her and having to pay her even if the work wasn't coming in. We sort of got around that. We negotiated an hourly wage, figuring that if I didn't need 40 hours per week consistently, I wouldn't have to pay for it. But in reality, Susan ended up working 50 hours a week from the start and that has never really changed. She is still hereand is vice president of the company. A Loose Collection of Consultants In the fall of 2007, when a large regional bank hired Beck to move its Massachusetts headquarters, Beck hired two more employees. From September 2007 through May 2008, Beck Consulting moved 1,500 people for the bank. From that time on, Beck continued to augment the bank's project management staff, managing various aspects of employee relocation on a permanent basis. By 2009, the company had seven hourly employees. The base of operations was still Beck's home, although most of the work was done on-site at client facilities. Beck's second employee described this start-up phase: I started working for Marilyn in 2007. At the time, Beck Consulting wasn't so much a company as a loose collection of consultants. She had one employee-Susan Smith. Mostly, though, Marilyn hired consultants to get the jobs done. Eventually, she hired me as the second employee It was interesting working out of someone's house. I feel fortunate to have started that way because I was able to work directly with Marilyn. I got to really understand what she expected and how she worked with clients. At the time she was a project manager running projects instead of the more administrative role she plays now as president of the company. l'enjoyed those early days. I felt we were all learning at the same time. The energy of starting something new and operating on a shoestring was exciting, but Beck felt the need to become established in a Boston location closer to her client base. "People were trying to do business on the streets with their cell phones," she recalled. "It was time we moved downtown." By December 2010, Beck Consulting had doubled in size, with enough work to keep ten full time employees busy. The company moved to 2,200 square feet of space. Six months later, it increased its office size by another 2,200 square feet. Beck explained the financial risk the company took that year: Instead of paying $6,000 a year on rent, we were now paying more than 10 times that amount. It was daunting. But the up side was that our business was expanding as well. By the end of 2011, we had over 20 employees. We had doubled in size in two years. Relocation ConsultantsA Niche within the Facility Management Industry Before 1980, the term "move consultants was not in Corporate America's vocabulary. Most-if not all-moves were performed by employees. Office managers in small to medium-sized firms and facility management teams in large firms typically had the dubious honor of managing and executing a move. In the 1980s, however, as the tidal wave of downsizing swept away corporations, executives found that there was no one left with the expertise and the time to plan a large move. The facility management outsourcing industry gave birth to a small subset of firms that chose to specialize in the high-stress world of corporate relocations. Another trend in facilities management, called "workforce churn," also fueled the growth of relocation consultants. Churn was the term used to describe the continual movement of employees as a result of expansion, downsizing, redeployment, or a project-oriented workforce. The reasons for the high level of churn rates were increases in industry consolidations, corporate mergers, and the rapid expansion of high-tech firms that used fluid teams to perform projects. In addition to offering an experienced, cost-efficient team to manage moves, relocation consultants also took the heat of a stressful move off an employee or department. Since two-thirds of employees in charge of a move are either fired or quit soon after the move, hiring a move consultant saved companies the cost of hiring and training new personnel. Beck pointed out that consultants were, for the most part, protected from office politics and made space assignments objectively. The Beck Way Throughout the 2005-2010 period, Beck experienced growth in number and scope of assignments. She continued to hire project managers in response to the increasing demands of clients. In 2010, Beck promoted Susan, her first employee and right arm, to the position of vice president. This marked a departure from Beck's "loose collection of consultants" and the installation of a rudimentary hierarchy. The bulk of the staff, the project managers, remained on the same level. The company prided itself on its lack of formal titles and status symbols. As Beck explained, I didn't personally do well in hierarchical organizations. I didn't like it, and I chose not to subject other people to it. That's not to say we don't have any hierarchy or that we have a totally flat organization. Of course, we do have some hierarchywe have hierarchy of experience. We have some people who have been in this business for 25 years and some who have been in it for one. The one with 25 years of experience is much more likely to be managing a project than the person with little experience. But we don't use titles, except for Susan and myself. It's not something that's needed internally, Despite the lack of titles, it was always clear to the client who to contact if there was a problem. In the beginning they always talked to me; then after I made Susan vice president, she talked to her clients and I kept mine. There was perhaps more internal than external confusion Although most of the staff at Beck Consulting were female, Beck asserted that she didn't set out to build an all- female company. The fact was the overwhelming majority of applicants happened to be female. Beck believed the reason for this was that the work lent itself to a traditionally "female" approach to tasks and problem solving. As she explained, The way we work is very hands-on. Of course, not all relocation companies work this way. One of our competitors is almost entirely male, and they don't offer the same level of hands- on attention to detail that we do. It's really a different business model. We are widely known for our incredible ability to coordinate and manage all the details of a move. One of our employees said to me the other day that a lot of what we do is handholding and giving pats on the back. And that really is important. People are traumatized by moves. Even if they are moving to a different floor in the same building, there is something very unsettling about it. We help communicate with people and listen to their concerns. At the same time, we handle a zillion details, from selecting voice/data networks to making sure there are coat hangers in every closet. Employees at Beck Consulting expressed a strong sense of shared values and prided themselves on their customer- service orientation. As Project Manager Makayla Jones explained, At Beck, we have a style of working that is tightly focused on customer service. We want the customer to be happy and we want to do a good job. Everyone here is willing to get down and dirty and do whatever it takes to get the job donewhether it's designing office space or crawling around on the floor looking for outlets. Workflow at Beck Consulting Client projects at Beck Consulting generally fell into two categories: one-time moves and ongoing facility management. Beck employees were primarily coordinators for one-time moves. They did not actually pick up and move boxes; rather, they set schedules and coordinated the moving company's activities with the activities of other sub-contractors such as security, electricians, and environmental systems. One-time moves involved anything from a small group relocating to another floor, to 2,500 employees moving to a new building over the course of a single weekend. Beck teams were formed for each job and were disbanded when a job was done. The ongoing facility work usually entailed at least two people working full time, or nearly full time, on-site at a client's facility. Ongoing work included space planning; inventorying, refurbishment, or procurement of furniture; coordinating new construction and building maintenance; and moving and installing technology. Employees at Beck either worked for several clients and projects at once or were stationed full time on-site as part of the client's facility management team. Beck and Smith conducted most of the company's marketing, which took the form of networking, nurturing client relationships, following leads, and the occasional write-up in the local press media. Approximately 30% of new jobs came from repeat customers, and most new clients came to Beck Consulting through word-of-mouth. Once a new client was identified, Beck or Smith wrote proposals and conducted negotiations. Smith maintained a two-month workflow projection based on current jobs and what she and Beck judged to be "in the pipeline." Jobs were assigned to project managers based on their availability and expertise. Employee preferences were taken into account whenever possible. Generally, jobs were given to teams of two or three people. Although one person usually functioned as the primary client contact and maintained a budget and schedule for the project, that person did not have authority over others in the team and did not act as team leader. When the job was completed, members of the team moved on to form new teams around a new project. In large or complex moves, the teams were bigger and Beck or Smith appointed a team leader to manage the overall move. Beck explained the fluid nature of the project manager roles: People are given projects based mainly on availability. They could be managing a large project this month and put on another project that someone else is running next month. So, a person is not always in charge, nor is he or she always in the position of underling. This structure really makes a difference to how people see their roles. As Project Manager Makayla Jones explained, We don't have politics at Beck. People don't have to vie for position. There's no real hierarchy. People aren't trying to get to the next level, because there is no next level. So, there isn't a sense of competitionjust a feeling that we want to do a good job on our projects. We enjoy each other's successes and help out from job to job. There is a lot of camaraderie. Since most clients wanted to minimize the downtime associated with relocation, the actual moving was done over a short and convenient period of time-usually at night or over a weekend. The team in charge of the move often needed more people to get the job completed on schedule. In particularly large or complex moves, the entire Beck company could be mobilized. As Project Manager Jones explained, We think of ourselves as a teamone that needs to work together. Everyone is very good about that. Because even if you're on a two-person team, you may have a large move and you'll need extra help. I've never seen an instance when someone's needed help and no one has come forward. Sure, there are lots of times when you don't know what people are working on, but there are also the times when everyoneeven Marilynwill pitch in and help with a move. Human Resources New employees came to Beck Consulting almost exclusively through word-of-mouth. Even in times of low unemployment job markets, the company had never needed to post a help-wanted ad. The company received several unsolicited resumes almost every week. Beck and Smith conducted interviews on an ongoing basis. Most of the resumes came from people with art, architecture, interior design, space planning, or facility management backgrounds. Many had experience as project managers for large companies. Beck felt that despite the word-of-mouth method of hiring, she was diverse in her hiring practices. Project Manager Steven Brown recalled why he was attracted to Beck Consulting: I wanted to work for a small company. I like to keep a balance between my work and personal life and be able for the most part, to maintain a 40-hour work week. I talked to some people who work for big companies and they had war stories about how many hours they put in. One of the benefits of working at Beck Consulting is that Marilyn and Susan recognize that people have a life outside the office and empower us to manage our own workload and hours. In the early years of the company, all employees interviewed and approved each new hire. Since the company was so small, Beck wanted to ensure that personalities meshed and that every employee understood and fit into the culture. Project Manager Brown, who was stationed full time at a client site, described'a typical Beck Consulting employee: We are generally people who can fit in with other people. I like fitting in like understanding my client's needs, understanding their organization, and becoming part of it. I keep a reasonable distance while actively taking part in the job and acting in my client's interest. We're chameleons. We can pick up the color of our surrounding environment. It helps to get the job done when you are able to think the way your client thinks. As the company grew, it was no longer feasible for all employees to be involved in hiring decisions. Instead, new hires met with an ad hoc committee of veteran employees. Project manager Makayla Jones described the hiring process and what she looked for in an applicant: Nervous people don't do well here. This is a high stress job. We are usually the last people brought in-after the architect, the builders, and so on. We are also the last people standing, there after the move is completed, and we end up taking responsibility for decisions we didn't make. It's also our job to stay on a bit after the move to make sure everyone is settled. Sometime this takes a lot of diplomacy. Lots of people hate their job or hate their company, and the way they express that is to say, "I hate my chair." People will try to gain control over whatever they can. So, we change the chair, the employees are happy, and the project is a success. Employees here also need to be comfortable with the lack of formal organizational structure. People come from all kinds of backgrounds. Some, who've come from large organizations with a lot of structure, have a hard time adjusting to the flexibility we have at Beck. We have to work odd hours. We don't have defined roles. And we don't get a lot of formal feedback Other than annual reviews conducted by either Beck or Smith, employees were given feedback and direction on a situational basis. Project managers had considerable autonomy over their projects. Jones explained the review process: There is a form Marilyn uses for employee reviews, but she just uses it as a guide. I haven't seen her actually fill it out. We are not managed very closely at all. Basically, Marilyn and Susan look at whether we bring our projects in on budget and on time. At the beginning of a job, they give us a not-to-exceed price based on a scope of work, and then it is up to us to manage the job. We occasionally get feedback from clients through letters or telephone calls. Most times we will ask the client if we can use them as a reference. We get a lot of our jobs through word-of-mouth, so it's important to have a good ongoing relationship with our clients. Steven Brown described his feelings about the way employees were managed: One thing I like more than anything else about this job is that, as far as the client is concerned, I am Beck Consulting. We manage ourselves and we represent our own company. I think it's great that I'm a reflection of our company. I've never fully had that feeling before in any other job. It's very satisfying. I have a feeling of ownership without the liability that true ownership would bring. However, Brown also saw drawbacks to the lack of formal structure: I have three people on my team. We are stationed full time at one of our large corporate clients. I am considered the senior person of that team: there is also another project manager and what I'd call a junior person on the team. To the client I am considered the team leader, but at Beck we're all considered to be on the same level. That's where I think there is something lacking in the organization, particularly for junior people who should be receiving regular feedback on their performance from a supervisor. There is some lack of clarity on our parts: our internal roles don't always correspond with our external roles. Most people here seem comfortable with this ambiguity, so I have not made an issue of it. As one would expect in a service business, payroll and related expenses comprised the largest percentage of expenses. All the project managers at Beck Consulting had the choice of being paid on an hourly or salaried basis. Hourly wages and salaries were negotiated individually, with the applicant naming a preferred rate, which Beck compared to other employees in the company with similar experience. Occasionally, Beck researched architectural and design firm employees' pay rates. However, Beck was more concerned with maintaining internal wage parity than comparing with other firms. Most employees chose to be paid hourly. As Beck explained, In the early days of the company, people were paid hourly because I wasn't sure we could guarantee full time employment. It was fine with employeesthey didn't need the guarantee of a 40-hour salary. Now, paying hourly wages serves as a motivator for people. It's similar to being on a sales force. The employees have some control over how much they make because, in most situations, they can set their schedules. We certainly don't want people working significantly more than 40 hours per week on a regular basis. People know, however, that if they do need to put in that kind of time they will be paid for it. In certain cases, individuals who are paid hourly make out better on an annual basis than those same individuals would have on salary, so I encourage some people to opt for hourly pay. A few of the people who started out as salaried have eventually asked to go hourly, I have never seen anyone go the other way. Growing Pains In 2012-2013 many of Beck Consulting's clients experienced growth and mergers, leading the company to double in size from 20 to 40 employees. Up until this point, the company had enjoyed steady, manageable expansion. Project Manager Makayla Jones explained the impact of this growth spurt: There was a rough period when we were growing rapidly. We had some growing pains. We went to 40 employees before we had the infrastructure to support them. People were getting hired so quickly. They felt they were thrown into the lion's den without any training. We didn't have time to train, and we weren't able to communicate with each other. On one project a newly hired person did not understand that she needed to report to a project manager for a specific project: the newly hired person did not understand that yesterday's boss could be tomorrow's colleague and yesterday's colleague could be tomorrow's boss. It's hard working in an organization with 38 people when you don't know who some of the new people are. Quickly, Beck realized that the company needed to change the way it trained new employees: It became clear that we could no longer train people just by osmosis. We had to institute a more formal training program, which is basically a mentoring system. New people, regardless of how much work experience they have, are partnered with someone more senior on projects until such time as they can go out on their own. Jones agreed that the worst of the transition times seemed past: As things slowed down a little, we started making time for meetings, and Marilyn and Susan have made an effort to get people to know each other. They tried to shift around the teams to allow people to work with others they hadn't gotten to know yet. Marilyn started picking names out of a hat and having those people go to lunch with each other. Through all of this rapid growth, Marilyn and Susan have tried to keep up the family atmosphere. For example, they are very tolerant of people's personal lives. Marilyn and Susan try to understand what is going on with everyone and how their personal lives may or may not interfere with their work. Another way Beck communicated with her growing workforce was a two-hour bi-weekly staff luncheon. All employees attended the meetings-even those stationed off-site. At the meetings, people had a chance to apprise others of particular issues they may have on a project. The company also invited vendors or other experts to give presentations as a way to keep staff up to date on industry issues and new products. The company always paid for lunch, and each meeting concluded with a cake and celebration of staff birthdays. Growth at Beck Consulting was not only measured in the increased number of client projects and employees. The company was also expanding its capabilities. New employees brought with them a range of skills that Beck Consulting added to its capacities. For example, the company acquired a small interior design firm that had expertise in computer- aided design. Beck Consulting also developed expertise in art collection management. In addition, the company was handling bigger and more complex moving projects that required larger teams of people and a more formal hierarchy to execute. Makayla Jones described the team put in place to conduct the Federal Courthouse move: Another way Beck communicated with her growing workforce was a two-hour bi-weekly staff luncheon. All employees attended the meetings-even those stationed off-site. At the meetings, people had a chance to apprise others of particular issues they may have on a project. The company also invited vendors or other experts to give presentations as a way to keep staff up to date on industry issues and new products. The company always paid for lunch, and each meeting concluded with a cake and celebration of staff birthdays. Growth at Beck Consulting was not only measured in the increased number of client projects and employees. The company was also expanding its capabilities. New employees brought with them a range of skills that Beck Consulting added to its capacities. For example, the company acquired a small interior design firm that had expertise in computer- aided design. Beck Consulting also developed expertise in art collection management. In addition, the company was handling bigger and more complex moving projects that required larger teams of people and a more formal hierarchy to execute. Makayla Jones described the team put in place to conduct the Federal Courthouse move: The project was different in that it was more massive than anything I had experienced before. It was the first time we designated an actual team leader, feeling that one person would be most efficient. I was the project leader, and had all the direct client contact. I directed three project managers who worked with the individual courts. I had to keep the project managers focused, maintain the schedules and budgets, and keep a view of the big picture. It was difficult at first. We had never worked in that kind of a structured team. It caused some tension because previously we'd been equals. But we talked it out and came to an understanding that our roles had to be different for this project. In the end we learned that sometimes we need that kind of structure to get the job done. For Beck, growth also meant she was forced to step away from project management and the day-to-day oversight of her company. She refocused her role on marketing and public relations. As the company grew, Smith shouldered more and more of the daily responsibility of running the company and supervising employees. Marilyn and I play different roles. Marilyn has become a personality-winning awards and being written about in the newspaper. She is now externally focused and involved in the marketing of the company. I am more hands-on, keeping tabs on staffing and the status of projects. Since Marilyn is so much in the public eye and out-of-the office so frequently, I'm not always sure if I should handle Marilyn's clients, if there is an urgent situation. As Smith and Beck's roles evolved, some employees expressed a sense of ambiguity concerning reporting relationships and authority. As Steven Brown described, It's a little hard to say exactly what the reporting structure is here. Clearly Marilyn is the president of the company. I think about her as the overall strategic "picture" person. Susan, think of more as the general manager/operations director. But I don't feel I have to go to only one of them about a specific problem. They are more like twin managers. The Future As Beck sat at her desk, she felt satisfied that she had built a reputable company, had a great team of people who were happy to work for her, and had a client base that would continue to expand. She knew that some key questions had to be answered in order to meet the future proactively. In what direction should she take the company? What will be the impact of growing from 50 to 100 people? This was very likely to occur in the next year, given the anticipated rate of growth, based in part on the projects they were currently being considered for. How much longer could she pay people on an hourly basis? She was sure that soon she would have to move to a conventional salary model. How would that impact her incentive structure? Beck also felt that she needed to create another layer of management. But should she? What impact would such changes have on teams and leadership of teams? As Beck became more focused externally, how should she change her role and what should that new role be? Are isolated tensions and ambiguities indicative of systemic problems that could be exacerbated as the company grows? How should Beck Consulting maintain-or change--its structure, culture, and ability to respond quickly and effectively to clients' needs through this period of rapid growth?

8. How does Beck allocate the work that needs to be accomplished for clients? How do employees know what work they are to do? How do employees know who their boss is? How do employees know how to relate to others in the organization?

9. In addition to creating roles and reporting relationships in organization, leaders also make a series of decisions about how they will manage people. Galbraith refers to these as rewards and people on his Star Model of Organizations. These decisions involve: who is to be hired and who selects these new members; how will people be rewarded for their work; and how will they be trained in the ways of the organization. In a service industry such as Beck Consulting, the goal is to create a sustainable competitive advantage.

How does Marilyn Beck scan the environment to hire potential employees? What is the process for getting hired at Beck? What impact do you imagine this approach has on employees and the Beck organization?

10. How did Beck compensate her employees? What impact do you think that this compensation system had on her employees? In other words, how did the reward system motivate employees to support the work of Beck, a critical function of the reward system?

11. What are Becks options for growing her firm?

12. As the firm continues to grow, most likely to 50 or 60 people in the coming year, what tensions are likely to intensify? Why do you say that? What data in the case supports your answer?

13. Would you advise Beck to re-structure her firm, and if yes, what should she do? Why do you make that suggestion? What is the likely impact of your organizational design on individuals and the organization?

14. What aspects of the organization and practices should be kept and what should be changed?

As she drove, Beck reflected on all that had transpired in her career since she earned her MBA in 2002 . She had started her business, Beck Consulting Corporation (BCC) a year after graduation. Over the next 11 years, her consulting business, which ranged from moving offices to entire companies to new locations, had grown from a one-person consultancy to a successful private company employing 40 people. Beck had reason to feel that she had "made it," But she also felt that she could not simply sit back and savor her success. Her business continued to have opportunities for growth. As Beck explained, The real joy for me comes from founding and growing a business. We are a growing company, and we need sparks of excitement that come from change, from going to the next level. Opening new offices, going national or international, expanding the services we offer, going public-all these things would give us as a company more reasons to be proud. People here are invested in the future. We can't get to the future by standing still. While the business was prospering, its growth posed urgent problems. For the first time, Beck felt she needed to add another layer of management to her organization. In addition, Beck wasn't sure that the compensation and incentive plans currently in place were appropriate for this new layer and she wondered if they needed to develop more formalized work systems and processes. However, she also worried that more hierarchy and formalization would ruin the carefully constructed culture of independent thinkers at her company. Beck had built her business by maintaining close contact with both employees and clients. Her vivacious personality, Intelligence, and "can-do" attitude set the tone for her company. Beck's personal touch was one of the major motivators for her staff and one of the selling points for the company's services. The central question in Beck's mind was how to grow the business without losing the hands-on style that had made the company successful. An Easy Way to Start a Consulting Company For Marilyn Beck running a relocation company was a perfect fit. She had moved several times in the United States and internationally with her late husband. In 1998, she settled in the Boston area. She earned her MBA part time while holding down a job and raising two children. Throughout the 19905 she held administrative management positions at a variety of Boston law firms. As it happened, a common denominator of all her jobs was moving the office. As Beck recalled, In August 2002, at the end of her third year of her part-time MBA program, Beck was ready for a change. She had become increasingly impatient with the rigid hierarchies she saw in the legal firms where she worked. She felt it took too long to make decisions and that steep hierarchies promoted a lack of accountability. Beck explained: One reason I really don't like hierarchies is their lack of immediate decision making. One example that had serious repercussions was when I worked at a law firm and we had a bad snow storm. I wanted to send people home early, but my boss had to go to his boss and on up the chain. By the time I got out of there, I ended up with a seven-hour drive home. The other part of it for me, is that I don't automatically respect someone with a title; I'm more interested in a meritocracy. The law firms couldn't give underlings decision making authority because they werent lawyers. Conversely, I remember a time I was lugging huge water bottles to the cooler and the big, strapping, male lawyers walked right by me-not one stopped to help. Being a partner took precedence over being a person. Those kinds of separations don't make for a cohesive team. I wanted to create a place where I didn't have to live by those rules. She felt she could be successful if she put all her experience with corporate relocation to work in a consulting business. Beck, however, was not sure how to get started. In 2003 , she had the answer. An office manager from a large Boston law firm called Beck to see if she'd be interested in organizing their upcoming move. The call came as a result of a networking group that Beck had started while she wa: working for a law firm in Washington D.C. Beck explained the connections that led to her first consulting job: I was working for the D.C. satellite office of a large Boston law firm. There was one other Boston firm that also had a satellite office, so I started a lunch group that brought together managers from both companies. I felt as though we dealt with similar issues and could benefit from sharing experiences. I got to know the office manager of the other firm pretty well. A couple of years later, after I'd moved back to Boston, the office manager from the Boston firm happened to be talking to the DC office manager. The Boston office manager was looking for someone to manage the firm's move, and my DC friend immediately recommended me. I interviewed for the job along with about eight other people. The hiring manager told me later that even though he'd interviewed people with a lot more experience, he said my interpersonal skills were so strong that they decided to offer the job to me. The company offered Beck either a full-time one-year contract to move its 950-member workforce, or to serve as an independent contractor. As Beck recalled, Beck set up shop in her home and worked independently on small projects until 2007 when she accepted a large job at a large, international university that eventually developed into a two-year commitment. She hired several temporary employees to help coordinate the move, but quickly realized that she would need permanent help. Beck hired Susan Smith, a facility management specialist from a large telecommunications company. Smith had a degree in interior design and experience with business furnishings that complemented Beck's business degree and relocation skills. Although Beck was happy to gain an employee with Smith's background, hiring a full-time employee was unsettling. As Beck explained, Hiring Susan, my first permanent employee, was the first big milestone for the business. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I was suddenly responsible for someone elsefor her family-for her livelihood. It was a combination of worrying about not having enough work for her and having to pay her even if the work wasn't coming in. We sort of got around that. We negotiated an hourly wage, figuring that if I didn't need 40 hours per week consistently, I wouldn't have to pay for it. But in reality. Susan ended up working 50 hours a week from the start and that has never really changed. She is still here-and is vice president of the company. A Loose Collection of Consultants In the fall of 2007, when a large regional bank hired Beck to move its Massachusetts headquarters, Beck hired two more employees. From September 2007 through May 2008, Beck Consulting moved 1,500 people for the bank. From that time on, Beck continued to augment the bank's project management staff, managing various aspects of employee relocation on a permanent basis. By 2009 , the company had seven hourly employees. The base of operations was still Beck's home, although most of the work was done on-site at client facilities. Beck's second employee described this start-up phase: I started working for Marilyn in 2007. At the time, Beck Consulting wasn't so much a company as a loose collection of consultants. She had one employee-Susan Smith. Mostly, though Marilyn hired consultants to get the jobs done. Eventually, she hired me as the second employee. It was interesting working out of someone's house. I feel fortunate to have started that way because I was able to work directly with Marilyn. I got to really understand what she expected and how she worked with clients. At the time she was a project manager running projects instead of the more administrative role she plays now as president of the company. I enjoyed those early days. I felt we were all learning at the same time. The energy of starting something new and operating on a shoestring was exciting, but Beck felt the need to become established in a Boston location closer to her client base. "People were trying to do business on the streets with their cell phones," she recalled. "It was time we moved downtown." By December 2010, Beck Consulting had doubled in size, with enough work to keep ten full time employees busy. The company moved to 2,200 square feet of space. Six months later, it increased its office size by another 2,200 square feet. Beck explained the financial risk the company took that year: Relocation Consultants-A Niche within the Facility Management Industry Before 1980, the term "move consultants" was not in Corporate America's vocabulary. Most-if not all-moves were performed by employees. Office managers in small to medium-sized firms and facility management teams in large firms typically had the dubious honor of managing and executing a move. In the 1980s, however, as the tidal wave of downsizing swept away corporations, executives found that there was no one left with the expertise and the time to plan a large move. The facility management outsourcing industry gave birth to a small subset of firms that chose to specialize in the high-stress world of corporate relocations. Another trend in facilities management, called "workforce churn," also fueled the growth of relocation consultants. Churn was the term used to describe the continual movement of employees as a result of expansion, downsizing, redeployment, or a project-oriented workforce. The reasons for the high level of churn rates were increases in industry consolidations, corporate mergers, and the rapid expansion of high-tech firms that used fluid teams to perform projects. In addition to offering an experienced, cost-efficient team to manage moves, relocation consultants also took the heat of a stressful move off an employee or department. Since two-thirds of employees in charge of a move are either fired or quit soon after the move, hiring a move consultant saved companies the cost of hiring and training new personnel. Beck pointed out that consultants were, for the most part, protected from office politics and made space assignments objectively. The Beck Way Throughout the 2005-2010 period, Beck experienced growth in number and scope of assignments. She continued to hire project managers in response to the increasing demands of clients. In 2010 , Beck promoted Susan, her first employee and right arm, to the position of vice president. This marked a departure from Beck's "loose collection of consultants" and the installation of a rudimentary hierarchy. The bulk of the staff, the project managers, remained on the same level. The company prided itself on its lack of formal titles and status symbols. As Beck explained, I didn't personally do well in hierarchical organizations. I didn't like it, and I chose not to subject other people to it. That's not to say we don't have any hierarchy or that we have a totally flat organization. Of course, we do have some hierarchy-we have hierarchy of experience. We have some people who have been in this business for 25 years and some who have been in it for one. The one with 25 years of experience is much more likely to be managing a project than the person with little experience. But we don't use titles, except for Susan and myself. It's not something that's needed internally. Despite the lack of titles, it was always clear to the client who to contact if there was a problem. In the beginning they always talked to me; then after I made Susan vice president, she talked to her clients and I kept mine. There was perhaps more internal than external confusion. Although most of the staff at Beck Consulting were female, Beck asserted that she didn't set out to build an allemale company. The fact was the overwhelming majority of applicants happened to be female. Beck believed the zason for this was that the work lent itself to a traditionally "female" approach to tasks and problem solving. As she xplained, Employees at Beck Consulting expressed a strong sense of shared values and prided themselves on their customerervice orientation. As Project Manager Makayla Jones explained, Workflow at Beck Consulting Client projects at Beck Consulting generally fell into two categories: one-time moves and ongoing facility management. Beck employees were primarily coordinators for one-time moves. They did not actually pick up and move boxes; rather, they set schedules and coordinated the moving company's activities with the activities of other sub-contractors such as security, electricians, and environmental systems. One-time moves involved anything from a small group relocating to another floor, to 2,500 employees moving to a new building over the course of a single weekend. Beck teams were formed for each job and were disbanded when a job was done. The ongoing facility work usually entailed at least two people working full time, or nearly full time, on-site at a client's facility. Ongoing work included space planning; inventorying, refurbishment, or procurement of furniture; coordinating new construction and building maintenance; and moving and installing technology. Employees at Beck either worked for several clients and projects at once or were stationed full time on-site as part of the client's facility management team. Beck and Smith conducted most of the company's marketing, which took the form of networking, nurturing client relationships, following leads, and the occasional write-up in the local press media. Approximately 30% of new jobs came from repeat customers, and most new clients came to Beck Consulting through word-of-mouth. Once a new client was identified, Beck or Smith wrote proposals and conducted negotiations. Smith maintained a two-month workflow projection based on current jobs and what she and Beck judged to be "in the pipeline." Jobs were assigned to project managers based on their availability and expertise. Employee preferences were taken into account whenever possible. Generally, jobs were given to teams of two or three people. Although one person usually functioned as the primary client contact and maintained a budget and schedule for the project, that person did not have authority over others in the team and did not act as team leader. When the job was completed, members of the team moved on to form new teams around a new project. In large or complex moves, the teams were bigger and Beck or Smith appointed a team leader to manage the overall move. Beck explained the fluid nature of the project manager roles: As Project Manager Makayla Jones explained, We don't have politics at Beck. People don't have to vie for position. There's no real hierarchy. People aren't trying to get to the next level, because there is no next level. So, there isn't a sense of competition - just a feeling that we want to do a good job on our projects. We enjoy each other's successes and help out from job to job. There is a lot of camaraderie. Since most clients wanted to minimize the downtime associated with relocation, the actual moving was done over a short and convenient period of time-usually at night or over a weekend. The team in charge of the move often needed more people to get the job completed on schedule. In particularly large or complex moves, the entire Beck company could be mobilized. As Project Manager Jones explained, We think of ourselves as a team-one that needs to work together. Everyone is very good about that. Because even if you're on a two-person team, you may have a large move and you'll need extra help. I've never seen an instance when someone's needed help and no one has come forward. Sure, there are lots of times when you don't know what people are working on, but there are also the times when everyone-even Marilyn-will pitch in and help with a move. Human Resources New employees came to Beck Consulting almost exclusively through word-of-mouth. Even in times of low unemployment job markets, the company had never needed to post a help-wanted ad. The company received several unsolicited resumes almost every week. Beck and Smith conducted interviews on an ongoing basis. Most of the resumes came from people with art, architecture, interior design, space planning, or facility management backgrounds. Many had experience as project managers for large companies. Beck felt that despite the word-of-mouth method of hiring, she was diverse in her hiring practices. Project Manager Steven Brown recalled why he was attracted to Beck Consulting: I wanted to work for a small company. I like to keep a balance between my work and personal life and be able, for the most part, to maintain a 40-hour work week. I talked to some people who work for big companies and they had war stories about how many hours they put in. One of the benefits of working at Beck Consulting is that Marilyn and Susan recognize that people have a life outside the office and empower us to manage our own workload and hours. In the early years of the company, all employees interviewed and approved each new hire. Since the company was so small, Beck wanted to ensure that personalities meshed and that every employee understood and fit into the culture. Project Manager Brown, who was stationed full time at a client site, described a typical Beck Consulting employee: As the company grew, it was no longer feasible for all employees to be involved in hiring decisions. Instead, new hires met with an ad hoc committee of veteran employees. Project manager Makayla Jones described the hiring process and what she looked for in an applicant: Nervous people don't do well here. This is a high stress job. We are usually the last people brought in-after the architect, the builders, and so on. We are also the last people standing there after the move is completed, and we end up taking responsibility for decisions we didn't make. It's also our job to stay on a bit after the move to make sure everyone is settled. Sometime this takes a lot of diplomacy. Lots of people hate their job or hate their company, and the way they express that is to say, "I hate my chair." People will try to gain control over whatever they can. So, we change the chair, the employees are happy, and the project is a success. Employees here also need to be comfortable with the lack of formal organizational structure. People come from all kinds of backgrounds. Some, who've come from large organizations with a lot of structure, have a hard time adjusting to the flexibility we have at Beck. We have to work odd hours. We don't have defined roles. And we don't get a lot of formal feedback. Other than annual reviews conducted by either Beck or Smith, employees were given feedback and direction on a situational basis. Project managers had considerable autonomy over their projects. Jones explained the review process: There is a form Marilyn uses for employee reviews, but she just uses it as a guide. I haven't seen her actually fill it out. We are not managed very closely at all. Basically, Marilyn and Susan look at whether we bring our projects in on budget and on time. At the beginning of a job, they give us a not-to-exceed price based on a scope of work, and then it is up to us to manage the job. We occasionally get feedback from clients through letters or telephone calls. Most times we will ask the client if we can use them as a reference. We get a lot of our jobs through word-of-mouth, so it's important to have a good ongoing relationship with our clients. Steven Brown described his feelings about the way employees were managed: One thing I like more than anything else about this job is that, as far as the client is concerned, I am Beck Consulting. We manage ourselves and we represent our own company. I think it's great that I'm a reflection of our company. I've never fully had that feeling before in any other job. It's very satisfying. I have a feeling of ownership without the liability that true ownership would bring. However, Brown also saw drawbacks to the lack of formal structure: As one would expect in a service business, payroll and related expenses comprised the largest percentage of xxpenses. All the project managers at Beck Consulting had the choice of being paid on an hourly or salaried basis. tourly wages and salaries were negotiated individually, with the applicant naming a preferred rate, which Beck ompared to other employees in the company with similar experience. Occasionally, Beck researched architectural an lesign firm employees' pay rates. However, Beck was more concerned with maintaining internal wage parity than omparing with other firms. Most employees chose to be paid hourly. As Beck explained, In the early days of the company, people were paid hourly because I wasn't sure we could guarantee full time employment. It was fine with employees - they didn't need the guarantee of a 40-hour salary. Now, paying hourly wages serves as a motivator for people. It's similar to being on a sales force. The employees have some control over how much they make because, in most situations, they can set their schedules. We certainly don't want people working significantly more than 40 hours per week on a regular basis. People know, however, that if they do need to put in that kind of time they will be paid for it. In certain cases, individuals who are paid hourly make out better on an annual basis than those same individuals would have on salary, so I encourage some people to opt for hourly pay. A few of the people who started out as salaried have eventually asked to go hourly, I have never seen anyone go the other way. Growing Pains In 2012-2013 many of Beck Consulting's clients experienced growth and mergers, leading the company to double in size from 20 to 40 employees. Up until this point, the company had enjoyed steady, manageable expansion. Project Manager Makayla Jones explained the impact of this growth spurt: Quickly, Beck realized that the company needed to change the way it trained new employees: Jones agreed that the worst of the transition times seemed past: As things slowed down a little, we started making time for meetings, and Marilyn and Susan have made an effort to get people to know each other. They tried to shift around the teams to allow people to work with others they hadn't gotten to know yet. Marilyn started picking names out of a hat and having those people go to lunch with each other. Through all of this rapid growth, Marilyn and Susan have tried to keep up the family atmosphere. For example, they are very tolerant of people's personal lives. Marilyn and Susan try to understand what is going on with everyone and how their personal lives may or may not interfere with their work. Another way Beck communicated with her growing workforce was a two-hour bi-weekly staff luncheon. All employees attended the meetings-even those stationed off-site. At the meetings, people had a chance to apprise others of particular issues they may have on a project. The company also invited vendors or other experts to give presentations as a way to keep staff up to date on industry issues and new products. The company always paid for lunch, and each meeting concluded with a cake and celebration of staff birthdays. Growth at Beck Consulting was not only measured in the increased number of client projects and employees. The company was also expanding its capabilities. New employees brought with them a range of skills that Beck Consulting added to its capacities. For example, the company acquired a small interior design firm that had expertise in computeraided design. Beck Consulting also developed expertise in art collection management. In addition, the company was handling bigger and more complex moving projects that required larger teams of people and a more formal hierarchy to execute. Makayla Jones described the team put in place to conduct the Federal Courthouse move: Another way Beck communicated with her growing workforce was a two-hour bi-weekly staff luncheon. All employees attended the meetings-even those stationed off-site. At the meetings, people had a chance to apprise others of particular issues they may have on a project. The company also invited vendors or other experts to give presentations as a way to keep staff up to date on industry issues and new products. The company always paid for lunch, and each meeting concluded with a cake and celebration of staff birthdays. Growth at Beck Consulting was not only measured in the increased number of client projects and employees. The company was also expanding its capabilities. New employees brought with them a range of skills that Beck Consulting added to its capacities. For example, the company acquired a small interior design firm that had expertise in computeraided design. Beck Consulting also developed expertise in art collection management. In addition, the company was handling bigger and more complex moving projects that required larger teams of people and a more formal hier