“Challenging the way we work to grow what we do”

Discussion

DM20 logoI’ve recently been having meetings to look at Drake Music’s strategy for the next three years and beyond. In some senses this blog post is me thinking aloud, and it might sound like that, but I think it is important to share my thinking about the evolution of this wonderful organisation.

Drake Music is 20 years old this year. It has had an interesting history and has gone through all kinds of changes. We’ve learned an awful lot, and in the last seven years I have learned lots about organisational change and organisational culture.  What I have also learned, and this is not new at all for anyone working in a small organization, is how to do things on a shoestring.  And that is exactly what we do – we create excellent work and deliver excellent services and all on a shoestring.

So, over the years I have become an advocate for working with a very, very small core team.  What I mean by core team is people on the payroll, currently six, all of whom are part time with me being the closest to full time. Everybody else is an associate.  Between all of us we have a lot of expertise and skills and an awful lot of commitment.

But in order to really deliver on our strategic aims over the coming years we need to rethink what kind of make up the organisation needs to have, what kind of structure we need. Why? Because we have lots of ambition. We are not short of ideas and constantly try and test things out but we do need a better resourced organisation so that our work is sustainable and reaches more and more people.

I like the agility of a small organisation and the fact we constantly try out new things and are open to new ways of working. But we depend on many people who could turn around tomorrow and do something else.

So we will need a different perspective – one that builds on the best of what we have – the people, the flexibility and the organizational dynamism.

But I tend to dislike hierarchy and structure which means I have to challenge myself over what the future looks like for Drake Music.  For example, can we have a bigger organisation that feels much like the one we have now? Do we need to completely change the way we work?

These are exciting times and we have a lot to celebrate in our twentieth year. Now it’s about thinking how we can build on that success for the next twenty years!

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