Is Your Growth Company Bigger & Stronger?

“Deep roots are not reached by frost.” — JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings

Lead­ers involved in growth com­pa­nies talk a lot about grow­ing big­ger. But as they focus on big­ger, they for­get to be stronger. And, as a result, the com­pa­ny gets weak­er the larg­er it gets.

As I walked with a CEO prepar­ing for a plan­ning ses­sion, we passed a spec­tac­u­lar tree that appeared to have a root sys­tem as wide as its 150’ to 200’ branch­es. Beside it was a spindly tree.

As we walked by, the CEO com­pared his com­pa­ny to the lit­tle spindly tree – which could eas­i­ly have been blown over if a tor­na­do hit — and said that’s exact­ly what they were when start­ing out. But the banyan tree, with a root sys­tem that was so mas­sive and strong, was ready for anything.

It’s a great metaphor.

As your com­pa­ny grows its rev­enue, you are vul­ner­a­ble if your inter­nal sys­tem and the clar­i­ty around strat­e­gy don’t get stronger too.

Peo­ple are so busy grow­ing big­ger they don’t ask what they can do to be stronger.