There’s a steady drum beat in organizations these days: Growth – Growth – Growth
I’m seeing it in my client engagements, and maybe you’re having growth strategy discussions within your organization too.
What's clear is that there's not one version of growth. In fact, what growth looks like varies greatly and depends on an organization's current capacity, lifecycle stage and specific market dynamics.
These examples illustrate how a growth strategy manifested very differently for three of my clients, and might help you gain clarity around what growth means for your organization:
For one client, Covid-19 put a spotlight on inequities and insecurities within the community their organization serves. As a result, they see an opportunity to expand their mission in response to new and growing needs and challenges. They are focusing and leveraging their assets, programs and brand equity to fill the gaps they have identified.
What Growth Means For This Client: Building on the organization's current mission by moving into new areas and expanding the way constituents see them. Reaching this growth goal will require organizational leadership to adopt a growth mindset, innovate and take risks.
Another client has finally reached financial stability thanks to new leadership and an enhanced offering. They now see an opportunity to expand services and increase their client base.
To achieve this, they must first grow by investing in the infrastructure and capacity needed to generate even more growth in coming years. They don’t anticipate increasing their client base within the next 12 to 18 months and recognize that, for now, growth needs to be focused internally in order to make their organization more stable, capable and efficient.
What Growth Means For This Client: A strong service delivery model, infrastructure investment and determining how to best use assets for the long term.
The third client is in an industry that's very hot right now, and demand shows no signs of slowing. They are focused on winning contracts and increasing top-line growth and profitability in order to position their business for sale in the future.
My work includes identifying operating efficiencies, creating an organizational structure to support growth and developing systems and processes to support the business and achieve the ultimate goal of a sale.
What Growth Means For This Client: Right now it means scaling the business and investing in the people needed to do so. Down the road it will mean exiting successfully.
The Bottom Line? Growth, much like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. It looks different for every organization, and within the same organization at different times.
If you’re working on your organization's growth strategy and need to determine the type of growth required to respond to the marketplace and achieve goals, give me a call and let's discuss what growth might look like for you.
