How important is flexibility in a growing business?

Grant Leboff: One of the things you talk about in the book, which I think is very in vogue, you hear it talks about a lot, is the point of being nimble / agile. How does that play out for you when you're growing a successful business? Guy Rigby: Well I think, looking at the other end of the extreme, you've got these very large corporates that seriously aren't nimble. It's very, very challenging for companies with legacy I.T. systems, and banks are a good example of that, to get stuck and bogged down and it takes forever to change the direction of the supertanker. So smaller organisations are, obviously, more nimble. Decisions can be made much more quickly. They can be implemented much more quickly, which is what it's all about, and I think you have to react to what's happening in the world around you. Often, when you're growing a business, you've set off down a particular path and it won't work. So you have to be prepared to change it. I always say to entrepreneurs; don't push water up hill. Once you realise that, actually, this is not going to get you to where you wanted to be, don't fall into some sort of lackadaisical state - the rabbit in the headlights - and just accept that, perhaps, it isn't just what you thought it was. You've got to find the better way forward. Grant Leboff: And do you see a tension, sometimes, in a business between being nimble, agile, and flexible as it were, but at the same time not losing focus. So where's the tension between; OK this isn't working - because sometimes it's a bit of perseverance as well isn't it - and looking at other things, so where do you see that tension sometimes in the business? Guy Rigby: I think the 'never give up point' is a massive one. But I think this also takes you back to vision, because if you've got a really strong, powerful, vision and you want to do something, it's just the way you're trying to do it that isn't working. So you have to find another way of doing it. So that's called the pivot, maybe. I think that it's a very difficult thing. Most start-ups never find the right way. A lot of them will cease to exist. I wouldn't say you go bankrupt because it's the wrong word. They just get a bit of seed capital, they spend it on trying to push water uphill and then end up closing down. Nobody really loses out apart from mom and dad or whoever it was that put the money in. But that's often the way that it can be. Grant Leboff: And what about the other side of the business. The business that is doing very well and the opportunities are there and you can say - we can go this way we can go that way - and I've worked with businesses like that as well. So again where's the tension between diversifying and saying 'oh there's a market opportunity, there is something we can do there' and again, not losing focus, which we know in business is something so important. Guy Rigby: I think the old phrase 'sticking to the knitting' is a very good one. I mean you really don't want to diversify until you've done as much as you can with the main product or service that you will delivering. I don't mean that you shouldn't diversify at all, but nevertheless, I think you need focus and you want to keep going down the particular line that you've set off, until you're convinced that you've got a strong franchise in that area and it's time to move on. And that might be because you've got some great customers and your products are satisfying those customers, but actually there's a group of products over here that, if you brought them in, you could sell to the same customer base, so maybe taking over that company with those products is a good idea. In general, a scaled up business is an exciting business and a scaled up business should go as fast as it possibly can. IF, the model is proven. There may be small changes to the spoken word in this transcript in order make it more readable.