There comes a point where a business can keep doing what has always worked and still stop growing.

Not because the business is failing.

Not because people have stopped working hard.

Sometimes, the business has simply reached the limit of its current way of operating.

The way you ran the business when it was smaller helped you get here. It worked. It helped you build your customer base, grow your revenue and establish the company.

But the business is no longer the same business.

There are more people. More decisions. More responsibilities. More customers. More things that need attention.

And sometimes, the way the business is being run has not changed at the same pace.

What worked before may no longer be enough

When a business is growing, it is easy to keep improving what already exists.

You make small adjustments. You add another person. You introduce another meeting. You create another report. You ask people to work harder.

But there comes a point where small improvements are no longer enough.

The business may need to rethink how certain things are done.

How are decisions made?

Who is responsible for what?

How is performance measured?

Where does leadership spend its time?

Which activities still make sense for the business?

What should the business stop doing?

These are not always easy questions because the current way of working is familiar.

It got the company to where it is today.

But getting the business to the next level may require a different way of operating.

Growth can expose the limits of the current system

A business can be successful and still have limits.

You may notice that decisions are taking longer than they used to.

Important issues keep coming back.

Leaders are spending too much time dealing with things that should already be handled.

People are working hard, but the business is not getting the same level of results from that effort.

None of this necessarily means the business is badly run.

It may simply mean the business has grown beyond the way it used to operate.

The problem is that when a business reaches this point, working harder does not always solve it.

Sometimes, the business needs to change the way the work is organised.

The next stage may require different thinking

Growing again is not always about adding more to what you already have.

Sometimes, it means asking whether what you already have is still serving the business.

A process that made sense when the company was smaller may now be slowing things down.

A decision that once needed the owner’s involvement may no longer need it.

A role that was created for a different stage of the business may now need to change.

A measure that was useful before may no longer tell management what it needs to know.

These changes can be uncomfortable because they mean accepting that something that worked before may no longer be the right fit.

But that is part of growth.

Ask a different question

When growth slows down, the first question is often:

“What can we do more of?”

But sometimes the better question is:

“What needs to change?”

That question forces the business to look beyond effort and activity.

It asks whether the current way of working can actually take the company where it wants to go.

Because there is a difference between a business that needs to work harder and a business that needs to work differently.

If your company has reached the limit of what its current way of operating can produce, doing more of the same may only keep you at the same level.

The next stage of growth may require the business to operate differently from the way it did when it was smaller.

And sometimes, that is what growth really looks like.

Not doing more.

Doing what needs to be done differently.

Excel and Grace Consulting
(Business Development Dept)