Growth is on the mind of every senior leader as we move through these winter months. In executive coaching sessions and during strategic reviews, CEOs and their teams are thinking and planning about how to grow and what it will take to sustain performance during growth.
The most common question I get asked along the way is the following: “Are there any good resources which I could read on this subject to help me get my thoughts together about growth?”
“Yes,” I respond. “I would read Scaling Up Excellence: Getting To More Without Settling For Less (Crown Business, 2014) by Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao. To date, it is one of the best books I’ve read on the subject and very applicable to today’s challenges. I also like that it is based on research over many years.”
Successful companies grow but what separates them from other organizations, according to Sutton and Rao, is that they first grow a specific mindset rather than just focusing on growing a specific foot print. This gives them a unique foundation to sustain performance during growth.
The other thing that successful companies do during periods of growth, according to the above authors, is that they make sure systems and infrastructure are in place to support the growth. As they explain, “Fix the plumbing before the poetry.”
We will be exploring the subjects of growth, excellence and scaling up operations during the upcoming Spring ’16 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable. Senior executives and their teams from a variety of organizations and states will be coming. I encourage all of you to read the aforementioned book as part of your preparation for this event on April 6 - 7 at the Courtyard by Marriott in Ankeny, Iowa. For more details, please click on the following link:
To register, please click on this link:
If growth is part of your future, I will look forward to seeing you at the Spring 2016 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable.
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