THE UNIQUE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF MIDSIZED FIRMS

By the time a company reaches midsized, the people practices it used as a small business are neither adequate nor appropriate, certainly not as a platform for growth.

The owner or CEO may realize they have to recruit and retain the best talent to compete with larger or smaller businesses, but he or she often has no idea how to make that happen. And leaving positions unfilled is a guaranteed growth killer.

Even when midsized companies have exceptional people, their leaders usually are too busy to help them develop. Also, as the needs of the business increase, its people may not have the skills to keep up with the new demands created by that growth.

Midsized companies’ people problems don’t end there. If their best people aren’t learning and growing, and aren’t enjoying a rewarding work experience, they could leave for greener pastures.

There’s a better way.

By adopting a few key people practices, midsized companies can attract the talent they need in sufficient quantities to grow their businesses. They can keep them happy. They can even lure people away from much larger companies or appealing startups precisely because they’re midsized. That’s one of the blessings of being midsized. Call it the Goldilocks factor – for many people, they’re not too big, not too small; they’re just right.

This book identifies three practices that, if done well, will drive a midsized company’s growth. These practices – the people drivers – are the sometimes-overlooked practices that the best-managed midsized companies use to recruit and retain top talent, to develop future leaders, and to create high-performing leadership teams that enjoy working together to grow the business.

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