The Dilemma of Bigger vs Better

I recent­ly found myself in con­ver­sa­tion with a CEO who didn’t know why his amaz­ing com­pa­ny has stopped growing.

After review­ing high-lev­el finan­cials, over the last 10 years, and their annu­al strate­gic plan, I could see that although their busi­ness was healthy and their prof­it mar­gins excel­lent, they had made one of the big and fatal mis­takes of growth.

Look­ing In vs Look­ing Out

Now, this com­pa­ny takes excel­lent care of their exist­ing cus­tomers, who, judg­ing by their cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion scores, love them.

And no won­der. They put a lot of effort into solv­ing oper­a­tional chal­lenges and improv­ing sys­tems and tools to take amaz­ing care of them. But, over time, that obses­sion has evolved into an inter­nal focus on short-term performance.

As they suc­cumbed to the inter­nal pres­sures of run­ning a big and busy busi­ness that per­forms well, they stopped look­ing out to pur­sue the new cus­tomers that would ensure their long-term growth.

The Dilem­ma of the Day to Day

Again and again, we see that, when we’re inside all the chaos of run­ning a high-per­form­ing com­pa­ny, cal­en­dars get filled with tak­ing care of the day to day. When there’s always so much to do, every­thing looks like a pri­or­i­ty, and we don’t real­ize that we’re turn­ing off the resources we need to run a growth engine.

Their dri­ve to become mas­ter­ful at being a bet­ter and a high­er-per­form­ing orga­ni­za­tion was clear.

And so was the way out of this day-to-day dilemma.

The Path For­ward is in Right Strate­gic Plan

In my con­ver­sa­tion with the CEO – who agreed with my assess­ment – the com­pa­ny had lost sight of becom­ing bigger.

They need­ed to fill the gap in their strate­gic plan and put at least one third of their focus on actu­al­ly grow­ing the busi­ness: adding new cus­tomers, prod­uct lines, loca­tions or part­ner­ships to dri­ve them to be a big­ger organization.

It was time to get these smart, capa­ble peo­ple in a room, for a cou­ple of days, to zoom out – to look at the big pic­ture and the growth pos­si­bil­i­ties and then reset their strate­gic plan for the next three to five years.

With a focus on achiev­ing long-term, sus­tain­able growth – while keep­ing their cus­tomers hap­py – choos­ing the two or three things that can make the biggest dif­fer­ence to their sus­tain­able health of the firm becomes a new and bet­ter priority.

The Chal­lenge

• When you look at your strate­gic plan and tar­gets for the next three to five years, is there enough focus and allo­ca­tion of resources to growth (becom­ing a big­ger orga­ni­za­tion and not just get­ting better?

Oth­er Blogs

• How to Get the Most from Your Strate­gic Plan­ning Process
• Strate­gic Plan­ning: 15 min­utes, 15 months, 15 years
• Does Your Strate­gic Plan Real­ly Dri­ve Growth – or Just Improvement?

Old­er Podcasts

• Five Things That Lead to a Bad Strate­gic Plan
• Annu­al Strate­gic Think­ing Meeting