Written by: Jeremy Han, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I seldom meet a business leader who does not want his or her company to experience exponential growth. However, not every business owner or leader achieves this result because they fail to deal with these three things. While there are many ways to grow a business, I consider these three absolutely essential for exponential growth. I define exponential growth as growth that doubles at least every two to three years.
The first – Dealing with the mindset of the team
While every company and their executive team will usually declare that they want to see exponential growth, most will not openly share their misgivings about how they can achieve it. One CEO, whose company I coached scaled 11X between 2017 to 2020, told me that the greatest obstacle he faced in scaling the business was to convince his people that it was really possible to achieve exponential growth provided they had a clear and simple plan that could rally the people and give them a glimpse of the path to success.
He said that his team, all experienced executives with corporate backgrounds, found it hard to think differently from others in the industry. Every industry has its precedents, and people find it hard to think outside of it. Breaking this mindset by showing them how we will do things differently, so that we can obtain a different result, is the key to success. Thus, for the leader to help the team to change their way of thinking, the leader must be prepared to develop plans that are different from other players in the industry.
But too often, companies don’t invest the time to find out how to do things differently. So they announce they have a great plan that would lead to exponential growth, and then they do exactly what they have been doing before all these years. And that is why over time, the more experienced an executive is, the harder it is for them to change their way of thinking and doing, and the harder it is for them to change their mindset. I had a client like this once. The CEO decided she needs to run the company differently, but her management team fought it because they did not want to change the way things were done because “for the last ten years, we have been doing it this way….”
We need to break this.
Which leads to the second point.
The second – Make strategy simple, not complicated, so people actually get it.
This is one of the greatest ironies of business and I think it has a lot to do with consultants over-complicating things. And that is why one of my clients, the CEO of a fast-growing health-tech business, told me they are glad I am a coach and not a consultant because consultants are like sea gulls. (I will not go into what it means here).
The word strategy is often linked to some grand plan but it really just means choices; what choices do we have to make, given our limited resources, to win? I observed that companies that really scale are those that can boil down their grand plans to a few key choices that tell the company what outcomes they desire, and then to focus on making these choices happen. A very good example I keep using to illustrate this is from the recent blog post from insurance company Lemonade, as they shared how they scaled from 0 to $100M in 3 years. In a nutshell, they outlined a few key activities that when done together and repeatedly, it generates momentum for growth:
You can see how it works here: https://www.lemonade.com/blog/zero-to-100/
And then keep repeating this virtuous cycle. Just keep focusing on these few things that create the synergy needed to keep scaling.
As executives, what we need to do is to break things down and keep it simple, and then tell everyone in the team this is how we scale, and ask them to align what they do to contribute to these few key things. This helps our people to see that indeed it is possible to grow exponentially, and not fall into the ‘analysis paralysis’ trap, which leads to people falling to old habits and things they are familiar with. Recently, a fast-growing company I am coaching now needed help to develop a strategy that could help them align the whole company in one direction and give clarity to actions, and we spent a couple of days breaking their entire game plan for the next five years to just 4-5 key components that is easily understood by all, so that they can grow exponentially without getting lost in the noise and mess of scaling up. These 4-5 areas can now be easily communicated to all stakeholders including their board and investors, so that everyone can get behind these objectives.
And the third – Find the right people to scale
This is a lot harder than it sounds like because most companies have teams or employees who have been around a long time. While they may have contributed to the company in the past, they might not be the best people who could take the company into the future. So do we fire them? Of course not! They have the experience and trust built up over the years and that is not replaceable. What we can do is to either help them to level up, and if they cannot make the leap, then recognize that they contribute best where they are currently, and we as the leader, have to find someone who could play the future role that we need for scaling the business.
This is what happened when I worked with a sixty year old company, and we had to take into consideration that several of the key leaders who had been with the company for the last thirty to forty years would not be able to contribute to the new plans. After two years of giving them ample opportunities to grow and adjust, they graciously knew they would contribute best at their current positions, and new leaders need to be raised to help the company achieve its exponential growth for the future.
As long as everyone is treated fairly in the process, we can find the right people without overturning the boat. It is a delicate process, because finding the right people is absolutely critical for scaling a business. So how do you find the right people? I suggest you look for grit or resilience in the face of uncertainty as a key criterion besides the usual ones on qualifications and experiences. This is because you will need people who can fight the rough battles ahead. Scaling up is not for the faint hearted, so you need leaders who can thrive in ambiguity and are self-motivated when things do not go according to plan.
So what next?
So if you are a business leader who is gearing up your company to scale, think about these three points I mentioned.
1. Do your people really believe the company can achieve a result different from the rest of the players in the industry? How can you help them to start thinking it is possible?
2. Is your strategy simple or complicated? Does everyone know what to do, and how they contribute to it?
3. Do you have the right people on the right seats to fly your rocket? Can they weather the varied types of storms that will come?
You may want to sit down with your team and start asking these 3 questions. Find out what they think, and then decide what to do next. Exponential growth is possible if you know how. And you do not have to do it alone. We have tools and resources to help you.
To learn a proven methodology, scan here to sign up for our free online course ‘How to Scale Your Business’.
Jeremy Han, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
He is a certified Scaling Up coach with Gazelles International, specializing in coaching executive teams of scale-ups across the world to maximize their profits and their impact. His clients are companies in Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Nepal in a diverse range of industries. They range from publicly listed conglomerates with revenues above a billion dollars to fast-growing scale-ups between $10m - $800m in revenue size. His personal mission is to help 100 CEOs, in 10 years, to impact 100m people. Besides business growth, he has helped companies to set lasting legacy goals that spur both dynamic growth and long-term impact. Some of these goals include creating 1m jobs in 10 years, clothing 1m people in 10 years, and enabling 1m under-privileged children to attend university in 10 years.
