Last week we began learning about how to fuel the growth of our organizations and teams. Let’s continue that journey by looking at three additional ways you can fuel growth. And here’s the good news: It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money! In fact, most of these are free.
A key to fueling growth is aligning activity to your priorities. Many leaders will spend a lot of time considering how they can hit the current benchmarks. There is nothing wrong with hitting benchmarks if those tie into your priorities. Priorities are the roadmap that tells you where you want to go. Your strategies and activities will accelerate your growth if they align with your direction and vision.
Another key is generously planting seeds of opportunity. A gardener will tell you that you cannot grow flowers or vegetables without planting seeds. The same is true for leaders who want to pursue innovation and growth. These seeds can include exploring new opportunities, inspiring your team to grow professionally, developing key relationships that will foster new directions, and ensuring that people are aware of your brand and priorities. Every conversation, every event, every meeting is an opportunity to plant a seed if you are proactively planning.
The final key is building your capacity to sustain growth. Take time to evaluate your facility, technology, team, resources, and relationships to understand where there may be gaps that would limit your ability to expand. Just like a bridge that has a weight limit, so do organizations or teams. If your infrastructure is too fragile, it will not withstand continued growth.
Each of these keys should result in priorities and objectives that are woven into your strategic plan. A weakness in any of these five keys will reduce your ability to grow and may actually cause you to lose business. Instead, consider these five areas (see last week’s Leadership Bits & Bytes post) to identify ways you can fuel your organizations and teams growth!
