Tag Archive for: growth

Growth is good – until it isn’t.  If you grow too fast, you can damage your brand, compromise your product, and burn out your team.  Good growth is managed and planned.

Let’s look again at a lesson from recent history. Toyota has long been recognized for their quality. That reputation took a hit in the first decade of this century.

In the early 2000s, Toyota was on a roll. They were expanding and manufacturing all over the globe.

It all started with a single episode of unintended acceleration in a Lexus ES 350 in California. The car accelerated out of control, collided with another car, and went down an embankment. Four people lost their lives.

Ultimately, there were many other complaints about unintended consequences. Floor mats, accelerator pedals, software, electronics – everything was suspect.

It became a PR problem and their reputation suffered.

In a hearing with the US House of Representatives, Toyota said they grew too fast. They outgrew their engineering resources. Their products became more complex.

They made changes to prevent this issue but more importantly they made changes to how they responded to problems as an organization.

The point here is that even large, well-funded companies can grow too fast and outstrip their capacity.

In this case, growing too fast meant lower quality that had real impact on their customers.

Growth is good, but you must manage it. Media often praises and reward fast growth, but there is real danger to a company’s future if it grow so quickly that it forgets its customers and damages its reputation.

Plan for good growth that you can sustain without your product, employees, and customers suffering because you grew too fast.

Contact us at https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmatt/ or use the CONTACT US page.

It’s a safe bet that if you do a quick internet search on business priorities that increasing topline revenue, improving sales performance, and increasing company value will show up in the top results.  Growth matters.

To misquote Gordon Gekko:  growth is good.

Growth tells us you are meeting a need in the market and customers see value in what you do. Growth gives your team more opportunities and expands your horizons. Investors are happy. If you ever watch ABC’s Shark Tank, you know that history and forecasts of growth are major areas of concern.

But it’s not all rosy. You must be prepared for growth and have realistic expectations.

Growing your company may require capital or decreased profitability while you invest in the future.

Your team may need to find newer, better ways to accomplish their tasks to be more efficient and maintain profitability. What got you here may not support you at the next level.

The company may outgrow the capacity and capabilities of its employees. This is especially true of leaders as the company moves from an idea to a company to a professionally-managed firm.

Strong leaders can navigate these obstacles by taking a long-term approach and making tough decisions at the right time.  You must be prepared to protect the business.

However, there are two challenges of growth that can be devastating if you aren’t intentional about protecting them:  maintaining culture and customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction is obvious. You won’t stay in business if your level of service drops. Customers have other choices.  Can you maintain your current level of satisfaction while adding more customers?

Culture, however, is easy to ignore if you aren’t intentional. Rapid growth may mean rapid expansion of your team. Hiring strategies must include finding new team members who embrace your values.  Leaders must work harder to model, foster, and communicate values as the team gets larger.  “Culture eats strategy.”

Growth is vital, but exceeding your ability to absorb growth is dangerous.