How Disciplined Is Your 20-Mile March?

How Dis­ci­plined Is Your 20-Mile March?

A Jim Collins’ Great by Choice Concept

It’s chal­leng­ing enough to run and build a great com­pa­ny in good times. But with exter­nal issues like infla­tion, sup­ply chain chal­lenges, ris­ing inter­est rates, remote work, and gen­er­al uncer­tain­ty, it’s much hard­er to man­age and stay focused on con­tin­u­al growth.

Jim Collins’ research found that the com­pa­nies that con­tin­ue to endure are dis­ci­plined in what he calls a 20-Mile March – a self-imposed, rig­or­ous per­for­mance tar­get that a team intends to hit, with great con­sis­ten­cy. Like steadi­ly march­ing across a coun­try, 20 miles each and every day, in good weath­er and bad.

No sud­den sprints – just con­sis­tent, incre­men­tal progress despite uncer­tain­ty, con­fu­sion and chaos, quar­ter on quar­ter, year on year.

As an exam­ple, Collins talks about the dif­fer­ent approach­es tak­en by South Pole expe­di­tion lead­ers Scott and Amund­sen. For sev­er­al rea­sons, both had dif­fer­ent out­comes of mak­ing it home alive, includ­ing one who took the 20-Mile March approach while the oth­er sprinted.

To achieve long-term suc­cess, you need:

• Self-con­trol. While tempt­ing to sprint dur­ing excit­ing peri­ods of growth, it’s hard to sus­tain that momen­tum and then (metaphor­i­cal­ly) you die.
• Teams gain this greater con­fi­dence and engage more when they con­sis­tent­ly win, time and time again.

And orga­ni­za­tions tend to be stronger with a more sta­ble and pre­dictable system.

Excep­tions & Rules

This sum­mer, I did a road trip from Kelow­na BC to San Diego CA and back. Our 20-Mile March plan was to con­sis­tent­ly dri­ve about five hours every day. We want­ed to enjoy the road trip with­out the temp­ta­tion of dri­ving two hours one day and then 12, the next.

And, one day, we were hap­py to dri­ve just over 10 hours. Some­times, cir­cum­stances call for a sprint and, for a short peri­od of time, that’s OK – if it’s the excep­tion, not the rule. Remem­ber, the goal is endur­ing success.

Guardrails

To keep on a steady, for­ward­ing mov­ing path, you need guardrails to guide your decisions.

These can be as var­ied as the com­pa­nies who use them. Some may decide that a min­i­mum lev­el of growth, every year, is enough. Oth­ers may need to make sure that they don’t grow too quick­ly or incon­sis­tent­ly to avoid hav­oc in the company.

When we do strate­gic plan­ning with clients, we always look at our pro­ject­ed rev­enues, three-to-five years in the future, to deter­mine guardrails of their 20-Mile March­es, with min­i­mum and max­i­mum lev­els, and what we need to do to stick to our targets.

Here are three examples:

• Increase our EBIT­DA mar­gin by .5% every sin­gle year.
• Focus on con­sis­tent­ly grow­ing topline rev­enues, over the next 10 years, with a min/​max top- line rev­enue growth between 10% and 14%, every year
• Con­sis­tent­ly grow the num­ber of suc­cess­ful sales­peo­ple by a set per­cent­age, year on year
• And, at Lawrence & Co., increase the num­ber of advi­sors each year.

A long-term view

With­out growth, you can’t pro­vide an appro­pri­ate return to share­hold­ers, nor be as engag­ing for peo­ple who like to feel like they’re on a win­ning team.

But much growth, although excit­ing, can be hard on the peo­ple and sys­tems of the com­pa­ny, cause expen­sive mis­takes and require hero­ics to be successful.

Estab­lish­ing thought­ful, clear and strate­gic guardrails for your 20-Mile March helps to ensure a long-term view to keep­ing growth healthy and sustainable.

The Chal­lenge

• If you found your 20-Mile March and you’re liv­ing by it, congratulations!
• If you haven’t clar­i­fied your 20-Mile March or your Min/​Max growth dri­vers, what would they be?
• How can you bring them to life so that they are lever­aged well?

For more details, lis­ten to Episode 120 of The Growth Whis­per­ers.

Addi­tion­al Podcasts

Why Stretch Tar­gets are Garbage

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Why You Can’t Save Your Way to Success

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Sev­en Busi­ness Strate­gies for an Eco­nom­ic Downturn

Six BHAG Mis­takes to Avoid

Strate­gic Lead­er­ship vs. Tac­ti­cal Decision-Making

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

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