Growing Questions

When people I met asked, are you concentrating on business growth strategy? I always say,  not necessarily.

See, a lot of people confuse business strategy with business growth. Well, there is no way but advancing and moving up, right? But there are many complex questions around growth and strategy that need to be unpacked. It is not a simple proposition at all. 

For now, the concept of business strategy is fundamental to any well-functioning organization, whether you are nonbusiness or a business entity. But it does not mean that it is about growth.

What is growth by the way? It is a fundamental question that the organization needs to ask. Where are you growing from? What does growth mean to you? It is bigger, better, more revenues, customers, worldwide distribution, becoming a business empire with acquisitions, etc. What does 'growth' mean to your stakeholders-shareholder, partners, customers, staff/employees?  From where do you have to grow from? Where- is a good question to ask.

A colleague of mine who sits with me in a nonprofit advisory committee told her husband that they don't need to buy five more cows in order to grow. They run a cow/milk businesses as a family and that they founded it from the bottom up. Having five more cows do not constitute growth, to her it is just more work. 

Correctly put, having more, bigger, better do not constitute growth at all. What are you actually sacrificing in order to get 'bigger, better, having more'? It is definitely a zer0-sum game because there is a question of scarce resources, time, energies, and attention. 

What kind of growth are you pursuing? There is a myth that you have to grow superfast, big, and outdo all the competition at the same time. Peter Drucker, the best management strategist of all time, said that a growth policy has to distinguish between healthy growth, fat, and cancer. They are all growth but the last two are negative, deleterious growth.  

Being obese as an organization is a temptation to have but not sustainable in the long run. More organizations are being 'fat' that actually not having real growth experience in their midst. The fat has to be trimmed off to pursue real growth objectives. 

What economies, cities, and organizations need is sustainable long-term growth strategy, that consider the changes in the environment, their unique strengths, and the growth opportunity present in those areas. 

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