By Chief Maker Executive Development Academy

What two days in regional Australia taught me about strategic leadership 

I recently spent an energising two days working with small business owners and leaders in regional Australia. 

As I reflected on the experience, it struck me that while there were many similarities in the challenges these businesses face compared to metropolitan businesses, there were also three strategic level standout differences… 

 

1. Strategic Speed: When Every Move Gets Tested Immediately 

One story that stuck with me came from David (name changed), who owns a restaurant in a town of 15,000 people. 5 years ago, he invested heavily in building a venue around a specific theme - Melbourne style with local produce. The renovation took months, the marketing campaign was carefully crafted, and it worked.  

However, within 24 months, three other restaurants in town had copied his concept. His advantage? Mostly gone. His differentiation? Erased.  

In larger markets, this might have taken five years and dozens of competitors. But in these smaller micro-markets it happened virtually instantaneously.  

Small markets strip away all the noise that lets us avoid hard truths about leadership and strategy and so they’re invaluable for learning about business at different scales.  

There is a reason that when Facebook wants to test new ideas, it tests them in New Zealand. The smaller market gives them faster feedback.  

As senior leaders in larger organisations, we often have the luxury of longer feedback loops. Quarterly results, annual reviews, and strategic planning cycles that span years. But that buffer is a risky problem to carry because we can get lazy, read early data to suit our own purposes and avoid negative results.  

Key lesson and questions: Create tighter feedback loops on your strategic bets. Pick one strategic initiative you launched in the last 12 months. What lead indicators could tell you if it's working? How can you compress your feedback cycle? 

 

2. The Acute Cost of Low Performers 

Another owner, Kelly, runs a small business with 12 employees and spoke about the impact of a negative team member who just didn’t perform. This one team member sucked the energy and momentum out of the entire business. Kelly explained that the flow-on effects to results and culture was almost immediate.  

She could not afford to carry the deadweight and moved quickly to help that person move on to a different opportunity for them. The collective sigh of relief in the business was palpable and as quickly as the team spirit had dropped, it returned to new heights.  

Larger organisations will often carry deadweight for longer (even though it is no less enjoyable). They have performance improvement plans, coaching programs, and complex HR processes that can take months to play out. The urgency just isn’t there.  

Key lessons and questions: Recognise that every person's energy impacts your team's collective performance, regardless of your organisation's size. What difficult conversation are you postponing? The cost of delay isn't just their underperformance; it's the collective energy drain on everyone else. 

 

3. Finding Your Bottleneck 

In small systems, bottlenecks are obvious and painful. The production line stops because you're missing one part. Sales stall because your best salesperson is at capacity. Growth hits a wall because you've maxed out your facility. 

In larger organisations, the system is far more complex and it can be more tricky to identify the bottleneck.  

I’ve often seen strategic plans and priorities developed without consideration for this critical component of a business's operations, and the impact is wasted capital, time and effort. And ultimately results.  

For instance, if Toyota decided to invest millions in a global advertising and sales campaign but the bottleneck was in the factory and not in sales, the demand would go up, but they wouldn’t be able to produce the cars to sell. 

And vice versa, if they invested millions in improving production but the bottleneck was in demand because of a competitor's moves then they wouldn’t be able to reap the rewards of improved production as cars would sit in storage waiting for sales.  

Key lesson and questions: Identify your true constraint and attack it directly, not the symptoms around it. Where is the bottleneck in your business right now? What would happen if you fixed just that one thing? 

 

The Goal 

The goal isn't to make your organisation small. It’s to intentionally keep the benefits of small business as you scale. 

If you can aim to maintain the clarity that comes from tight feedback loops, direct accountability, and close connection to what actually drives results, then success will come your way. 

Large organisations have real advantages: resources, specialisation, market power. But they also create distance between decisions and consequences, between leaders and reality, between the business and its customers, and ultimately, between strategy and results.