Imagine that you head a company that creates innovative, highquality toys and games. You have 25

highly motivated employees, most of whom you hired yourself. You've built the company with an openbook management styleevery Friday at lunch, you all meet and go over what's happening at the

company and, while final decisions rest with you, you ask all employees for their input on major

decisions and almost always act on their choices. Employees work in teams to devise new toys and have

a great deal of independence in which toys they create. In your profit-sharing program, each employee

gets an equal share of a portion of the company's profits.

The good news: Your company's products are so popular that you can't keep up with demand. To

expand, you must hire many more workers. However, attempting to manage by consensus is already

difficult. The conference room during team meetings is already full.

You attribute much of your company's success in creating innovative toys to your management style,

which nurtures employees' independence and sense of ownership. Yet you recognize that with a

growing workforce, you face many more challenges in the way you manage.

Revise your management strategy in ways that will take into account a growing workforce but still

maintain your company's creativity. Ponder the following points:

1. You won't knowor have much of a personal relationship withsome of the employees as the

company grows. How can you make sure each one is capable of making decisions that are good for your

company?

2. Many of your employees, in your still-small company, perform a number of tasks. As the company

grows, the roles become increasingly specialized. How will people in specialized roles, such as product

engineers or shipping clerks, be able to make decisions that benefit the entire company?

3. Your profit sharing is now based on company-wide performance, and already, some people are

disgruntled that they work harder but receive a similar share of the profits as others.

4. A few of your company superstars love the existing, consensus-driven, ownership culture and have

stayed at the company because of it, even though they could command higher salaries elsewhere. They

will threaten to leave if the culture changes too much.

5. Consider ways to adapt your management style to keep your workforce motivated, creative, and

feeling a sense of ownership as your company grows. What would you change about your current