The Growth Lab diaries
Recently, I’ve had more opportunity than I usually do to work with owners of small and medium businesses, and some of their leaders. I love this space. It takes me back to where I cut my leadership teeth – running the operations across the restaurants of a McDonald’s franchise group. I was working for Wilhelm and Jos Maas - two of the most outstanding people I’ve ever met, and certainly the best people a young fella in his formative working years could hope to have as leaders.
It's reminded me how sophisticated owners of these types of businesses are when it comes to thinking about building and growing the venture they are pouring their heart and soul into. It is – for most – 7 days a week of focus, dedication, and getting very smart about which efforts get the most valuable returns.
At their best, these owners and their business leaders seem to be running a long form exercise in simplifying the sophistication. Yeah, sounds a bit oxymoronic. But what I’m learning (or being reminded of) is the power of focusing on a few key things to create maximum impact. There’s so much that can soak up your energy. If you give equal attention to it all, you’ll run out of gas. What I’ve noticed is their ability to zero in on what matters, and go hard on that. When I compare what these businesses are doing compared to other types of clients I work for, the same rules of thumb translate across.
I’ve taken what we’ve been learning from those sessions, and boiled it down into what we now call the Growth Lab. If you’re interested, here are some key takeaways coming through about the stages of growth for teams and businesses:
Groups experience different stages as they evolve and renew (see the graphic on the right). Self-awareness of where they are at is key.
The ‘shifting’ phase creates uncomfortable tension. It involves leaving behind some of what has worked, unlearning unhelpful habits, and developing new and unfamiliar skills and processes.
Groups who stay with the tension long enough move into a growth phase. With time and familiarity, the group learns where the best return on effort is, and focuses its attention there. This requires less energy, and things start to flow.
There’s a limit. Groups who stay with the same habits for too long, and get too comfortable, end up relying on fixed ways of working. Over time, those ways become less useful, or even obsolete, and the group ends up in a drifting state.
After the drift, comes stagnation. Groups who successfully evolve notice the 'risk of the drift', and choose that point to ‘shift’ onto a new path. To put it another way (and to borrow from James Kerr’s excellent book, Legacy): “When you’re on top of your game, change your game.”
All of these reflections have been themes for the business owners and franchisees who are building some outstanding enterprises. I think they also work for teams in any environment focused on growth. You might even look at this in terms of your own individual growth.
So here’s the point: If you want to be deliberate about what you are building, you’ve gotta know where you’re at. Wherever you’re at, it’s all good; the key questions that follow knowing where you’re at are:
Where do you (or your team) want to be next; and
What’s it going to take to get there?
What would that be worth to you?
So, where are you at? Where does your team say the team is at? Where do your customers say your business is at? And once you know that, what do you want to do about it?