Does Your Strategic Plan Really Drive Growth – or Just Improvement?

Most com­pa­nies aspire to have, and put a lot of time and ener­gy into, activ­i­ties that chart a course for growth.

But, as time goes by, many lose alti­tude on their growth trajectory.

Every­one is in posi­tion. They are fueled up and the instru­ments in the cock­pit seem to be work­ing. And yet, they are going nowhere.

So, what’s the problem?

Chances are the pilot has inad­ver­tent­ly backed off on the throttle.

It’s a pat­tern we’ve seen in hun­dreds of companies.

After thou­sands of strate­gic plan­ning meet­ings, I start­ed to notice core pat­terns: As com­pa­nies got big­ger and more com­plex, in the day-to-day of get­ting busi­ness done, they either stopped doing some of the things that cre­at­ed their growth, stopped pay­ing atten­tion, or lost touch with what real­ly drove their growth.

It’s a form of for­get­ting the basics once you think you’ve mas­tered something.

We’ve all done it.

And when CEOs and exec­u­tives do it, they inad­ver­tent­ly become dis­con­nect­ed from the growth engine.

Slip­ping into Improve­ment Mode

Some­how, peo­ple think that when their com­pa­ny becomes big­ger and more suc­cess­ful, their job is to admin­is­ter and improve the busi­ness. They work on inter­nal projects and stop lead­ing the charge on projects that have a direct impact on the cus­tomer and gen­er­at­ing new oppor­tu­ni­ties: build­ing rela­tion­ships, enhanc­ing prod­ucts, explor­ing and get­ting new mar­kets, addi­tion­al resources and partnerships.

When they are no longer in the growth quad­rant, that sends a sig­nal to the rest of the busi­ness that this improve­ment mode is ​‘busi­ness as usual’.

And then growth slows or stops.

Reveal­ing Ques­tions & A Strate­gic Plan Review

When we work with new orga­ni­za­tions, we can get a sense if they are either in improve­ment mode or growth mode by ask­ing two questions:

1. Over the course of an aver­age month, how much time does the CEO spend in inter­nal ver­sus exter­nal meetings?
2. What per­cent­age of the CEOs time is direct­ly con­nect­ed to the get­ting of resources, rela­tion­ships and oppor­tu­ni­ties that dri­ve the core growth met­ric unit of the busi­ness next year and the year after ver­sus improv­ing the effi­cien­cy or prof­itabil­i­ty of the cur­rent business?

We also look at their strate­gic plan and goals or objec­tives for the next three years.

• What per­cent­age of the objec­tives dri­ve more Xs (the core unit of the busi­ness) or get new customers?
• What per­cent­age of the objec­tives are relat­ed to improve­ment in dri­ving qual­i­ty, effi­cien­cy or profitability?

Ide­al­ly,

• A CEO allo­cates at least 50% of their time to exter­nal activ­i­ties focused on the future growth of the busi­ness, and
• At least a third of the three-year objec­tives, in the strate­gic plan, are focused on tru­ly dri­ving growth via increas­ing the Xs (the core unit of the business).

The Chal­lenge

• As a CEO, how much time are you actu­al­ly spend­ing on growth activities?
• How might you revise your strate­gic plan/​objectives to focus more on real growth (your Xs)? 

Oth­er Blogs

• What Would Hap­pen if You Spent Anoth­er 10% of Your Time on Growth?
• Get­ting Big­ger & Bet­ter with True Growth: More Xs & Profit/​X
• The 4 Ene­mies of Growth
• Do Your Team’s Aspi­ra­tions Match Your Growth Aspirations?

Old­er Podcasts

• The 4 Forces of Growth