In my experience, companies often start out like an amoeba. Small. Squishy. Able to flex and bend into nearly any shape needed.

Over time, the company grows. Growth is a good thing. Growth is why the company was birthed. But amoebas can only grow so much. They’re single-celled organisms.

Have you ever seen an amoeba with the naked eye? Of course not. If an amoeba ever got big enough to see with the naked eye…it would collapse in on itself.  Amoebas have no internal structure to support the weight of growth.

Many small companies believe that one of their key competitive advantages is their flexibility. And they’re not wrong. Agility, adaptability, flexibility – they’re all very important in today’s business environment. The problem is that some of those companies incorrectly believe that it’s their lack of internal structure that is the key to flexibility.

As an entrepreneurial leader, do you bristle at rigid, inflexible processes? Perhaps processes that your team or advisers are recommending you implement? I know I often did. Until…

What if you saw those processes as the enablers of growth rather than the killer of it?

A 50 pound amoeba will implode in on itself. But a 50 pound child can perform all sorts of wild and crazy stunts. Why? What’s the difference?

A child has a rigid, inflexible internal bone structure that bears the weight of growth! And it’s so rigid and inflexible that when it encounters the ground at an odd angle after having bounced hilariously off the trampoline…it snaps. And it hurts. And it’s expensive. And every child I’ve ever encountered with a broken bone said the same thing: “IT WAS WORTH IT!” The exhilaration! The excitement! The FUN!

Can you imagine a 50 pound amoeba on a trampoline? How would it even get up off the ground to get onto the trampoline?

What’s the difference between the 50 pound amoeba and the 50 pound child? Bones. Rigid, inflexible, hard bones. And it’s that bone structure – rigidity appropriately applied within the body of the child – that enables the full expression of all that child is meant to be. The same is true for your company…and your life.

• Rigidity appropriately applied gives us opposable thumbs, which is what enables us to physically grasp nearly any small object.
  
  
• Rigidity appropriately applied enables the single cells we each started out as to carry the weight of hundreds of pounds (over 325 of them for me at one point).
  
  
• Rigidity appropriately applied allows us to contort ourselves into all sorts of oddball shapes in order to reach that missing sock that mysteriously appeared behind the couch.

Rigidity appropriately applied is the foundation for growth! And, rigidity appropriately applied is actually the key to meaningful, powerful, impactful flexibility!