Because I thought it was an appropriate lens through which to view my experiences throughout my tech career.

Over the course of my adventures through the Boston technology scene, I have had an amazing opportunity to be part of four separate liquidity events – two IPOs (Brightcove and Eprise), and two buyouts (Endeca by Oracle, and most recently, Applause by Vista Equity Partners).  At each of these, I have joined as employee somewhere between 75 to 125, and helped them grow to 250 to 500+ employees.

As you can imagine, living and working through that kind of growth has provided me with many interesting perspectives and insights. Throughout those experiences, I have found the transformation of companies (as well as teams) exist within a paradigm that I call “Grow-Evolve-Operate.”

GROW

The first stage is the Grow (or Growth) stage. It is during this phase that companies and teams are figuring things out rapidly, reading and reacting, constantly iterating. This is the “GSD” phase (“Get Shit Done”) – you run from fire to fire, challenge to challenge and if you are successful, it is exhilarating to watch your company and team grow rapidly.

EVOLVE

From there, you move into the Evolve stage. This phase still has many challenges and issues that must be dealt with in real time, but this phase is often more intentional rather than reactive.

You have likely built approaches and processes that have helped you scale to this point but they aren’t refined or internalized. The Evolve stage is where you leverage past learnings and experiences to evolve how you run your business and teams, building on your previous successes. Doing so creates the foundation for the next phase – the Operate stage.

OPERATE

The Operate stage is your “rinse and repeat” phase. Based on the work you have done in the first two stages, your foundation should be established that let’s you run the business in a predictable and efficient way. Here you become the operator, turning the dials to make your team and company the most efficient and effective that they can be.

Fractal Paradigm

I also believe this paradigm is fractal in nature as well, whereby your team, your department and your business can be in various stages of this model all at once.

As an example, your team could be in the Grow stage as it could be leading a new line of business for your company, while your department could be in Evolve stage as you expand to meet the market needs of your company and its customers, and the business could be at the Operate stage across its main revenue generator.

I encourage you to think about this paradigm and how it can be used as a lens through which your initiatives and efforts can be viewed.