Some businesses avoid growth, as they think that they will not be able to manage a larger organisation, or that the process of growth is daunting, but with some signposting, you don’t have to have growing pains and you will manage the process. In this blog we will deal with some of those ways.
Here are seven signs that show whether your growth plans are going well or badly. In our world, it’s not just about growth – we prefer making the business better as a descriptor anyway (which may mean bigger, but not necessarily).
1. Mindset – make sure everyone’s mindset encourages the change. Don’t just put in processes and hope. Sell it to your people (all of them), encourage their feedback and active participation. You won’t manage this all on your own. Be clear that you may have to have the vision, but you don’t need to do it all.
2. Engage all the senses – ensure all the organisational practices, technical and human elements all work together. Look at your plans in the round. It’s a good way of checking that the experience you want to happen will happen. Or it won’t scale, and you will spend endless hours in underachieving.
3. Short term realities need to be aligned with long term objectives. We send a lot of time ensuring our clients gets this right. Otherwise, short termism will spell the death knell of what they really wanted.
4. Make it accountable. Work out what evidence you need to show it’s going where you want, when you want, how you want. What tools and techniques will you need to measure progress?
5. Clusterfug. Avoid it. Don’t let bad get to worse. Don’t allow the busy mundane issues get in the way. Keep your goals clear, review and measure regularly. We usually do this every 3 months with our clients. See above.
6. Growing doesn’t just mean adding, it can (and often does) mean losing stuff that doesn’t work in the new model. Stuff can mean products and services; it can mean customers, or some of your ways of working. Rule nothing in or out. That’s what getting better means and one reason why we like that as a descriptor.
7. Don’t just do something, stand there! And reflect. Is this the right direction, speed, method? Don’t just blindly press on. See above!
Don’t worry if it doesn’t adopt a nice linear way of getting you from here to there. These points aren’t done one after the other – they all interact and some rework will and should be needed. Be realistic – life isn’t linear, we just want it to be. Expect – even plan for – a period of consolidation before the next push forward. It’s easier to manage that way. But do make sure that you can measure progress and direction so you can realign objectives with your growth (betterment) strategy regularly. See 5 above. That way you will get what you want. There’s more in these videos.