How to Design a Robust Strategy for Growth

 

Growth strategy is important for organizations, for it is exactly this strategy that answers the question of how the organization will adapt or even drive change in the environment so that it ensures its survival and prosperity in the future. Growth strategy simply specifies the actions that the organization needs to take so that it moves from where it currently stands to where it would like to be in the future. Growth strategy however cannot develop in a vacuum. The answer to the question of why the organization should exist both now and in the future should precede it and so does the answer to the question of what the organization wants to achieve in the framework that the answer to the “why” question specifies. Still, event this is not enough however. The organization still needs to answer the “how not” questions that are specified by its value system.

It therefore seems that growth strategy alone is not enough. A good growth strategy should be devised based on the answers to the fundamental questions of why the organization should exist, of what it wants to achieve and of what not to do in order to achieve it. It would only then that the answer to the how to act becomes relevant. And it is then that all the assumptions are defined as well as the relevant action items and the must win battles are decided. Still this is not enough however!

 

No organization can deal with different, more and more complex problems without developing itself at the same time. Rough ships simply require better ships. Organizations therefore need to develop themselves at the same time that their growth strategy is implemented, in a way that supports its implementation. And there should be a strategy for this development as well. There should be a plan for this. There should be action items and must win battles in this respect as well. And the battles that the organization would need to win internally may be more important compared to the battles that it would need to win outside. For there will be resistance. But it is a prerequisite for a growth strategy to be successful that the organization develops up to the task!

 

Growth strategy can be successful only along with a strategy for the development of the organization itself. It is only when organizations have acknowledged this fact that they can structure and restructure themselves accordingly and acquire relevant knowledge and capabilities. And it is only then that their growth strategies would have a good chance of being effective.