Are they Growing Pains???

Some people in my country say that having work experience is the most important factor in development of person’s career. They say that theory plays a little role in that process. But I would never agree with them. My opinion is that we need to acquire some level of theoretical knowledge to be able to better understand real-life problems and tasks at work. The question whether entrepreneurs need theory of entrepreneurship is matter of discussion, since some still doubt if the do need. As for me, I think they definitely need and I will illustrate this by linking the issue with my personal-work experience.

Before coming to JIBS, I worked for a company which became corporation when I was there after being Limited Liability Company for a long time period. I think it was not an easy transition and it was mainly caused by the growth of the company. After one month of working there, I saw that some people felt that there were not enough time to accomplish a task, some others were unaware of what other people in the same department were doing and majority thought that meetings are a waste of time. More importantly, I noticed that there were not many good managers. Even I wondered if I could have more hours in a day to accomplish the tasks I was assigned to. My manager was highly involved in day-to-day activities of the firm and no issue was solved without first agreeing with her. Also, I could list all other problems but above mentioned ones are enough to grasp the main idea. The thing I want to emphasize is that I saw those problems there but I just saw them as facts but could not realize that they were cause by the growth of the company. Also, due to the fact that I worked there just for 4 months, I was not aware of main changes that took place in company’s previous years. So, I even did not feel that the company was growing. But now, after I read the article “Recognizing Growing Pains and Assessing the Need for Change” by Flamholtz E. G., I comprehend the company was growing and actually, it is growing at the present. Consequently, I recognize those problems as Growing Pains as Flamholtz E. G. (1990) called them. Notably, those growing pains, I saw in the company, are still there and CEO (newly changed from being called as entrepreneur) together with managers do not realize them. Moreover, they will not be able to realize those until the company will come close to so called “choking on its own growth” used by Flamholtz E.G. (1990).

Finally, I would say entrepreneur needs the theory of entrepreneurship. Considering the above case, just imagine what happens if CEO or one of the managers read the literature about Growth and Growing Pains. I am sure, they will recognize growing pains they face, and they will look back to their company situation and start to build the required infrastructure, knowledge and organizational structure to accompany growth the company is going through.