I had an interesting experience the other day that taught me such a lesson about keeping what’s special about you as an organisation as you grow. About not losing the DNA of the business as you add in the structure to enable growth. You see I love the clothing brand “Fat Face” – out of work you’ll mostly catch me wearing their clothes and I love the story behind the brand. About two guys who went out for a ski season and needed to earn some money so they could stay on in the resort and keep skiing, so started selling sweatshirts and clothes out the back of a van and from such simple beginnings a whole brand has developed with one of the most recognisable shops on the High Street.

The “Fat Face” slogan is that “life is out there”! Its about playing hard, taking risks, living life to the full, having an adventure – “better a bad day on the water than a good day in the office” was another of their favourite merchandising slogans. It’s what their core culture is, and it’s what makes them what they are.

So back to my story. I’m in Fat Face with my two daughters and my youngest is in a pushchair. The childrens and female section (we were looking for my wife’s birthday present!) are downstairs and so I carefully bounce the pushchair down the stairs, which were fairly steep and, unsurprisingly my daughter’s not overly impressed. I’m not overly impressed that two assistants just stand and watch me.

Anyway purchases are made, I gave in to my eldest daughter’s plea for a new top too, and we need to go back to the first floor to pay. The lip of each stair makes it impossible to drag the pushchair up the stair without virtually tipping my daughter out. After a bad trip down the stairs she’s now crying at the thought of going back up. Eventually a friendly shopper takes pity on my struggles and takes one end of the pushchair and helps me lift it up the stairs.

As I go to pay the sales guy who has witnessed all this says something to the effect that he’s sorry he couldn’t help but it contravenes health and safety. Now of course, I know, he doesn’t mean health and safety at all he means insurance. Health and safety is all about minimising risk and clearly to get a pushchair safely up stairs is a two person job not a one person job, so health and safety would actually require them to help – or to provide a lift, or anything rather than stand and watch to be honest! No, he’s worried that if he helps us lift the pushchair up the stairs and something goes wrong we might sue him. It’s a damning indictment on the legal and claim culture that exists in the UK right now.

But it struck me how sad it was that a business that grew out of two guys going on an adventure and which wants it’s customers to believe they are buying a brand with a culture of risk and adventure has become so weighed down with corporate governance and rules that it won’t help customers with pushchairs. It won’t take risks – it’s sold out on it’s culture.

If ever our organisation gets so big that we forget the vision and the culture we started out with – please do tell me. It will be time to turn off the lights and go home.