1

NEEDLE MOVERS

by Stuart Ross

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Table of conTenTs

chapter 1 Introduction 3

chapter 2 How to read this book 4

chapter 3 What is a high growth company? 5

chapter 4 The high growth disciplines 12

chapter 5 Start the needle moving – five needle

movers for leadership

13

chapter 6 Move to the next level – five needle

movers to build a high performance team

27

chapter 7 Step up the pace – five needle movers for

creating a high growth strategy

39

chapter 8 Full speed ahead – five needle movers for

implementation

51

chapter 9 Conclusion 63

chapTer 1

Introduction

Do you run a successful business but want to

know how to take it to the next level? Have

you worked hard over the past few years to

prove you have a viable business but now

feel like your sales and profits are standing

still? Are you looking for a way to scale your

business, develop additional product lines

or explore new income streams? Or are you

already achieving high growth and want to

ensure that you sustain it?

You’ve come to the right place. My name is

Stuart Ross and, as one of the world’s most

successful business coaches and trainers,

I work with ambitious and fast growing

companies like yours to help them achieve

and sustain high growth.

This ebook – The Needle Moves – 20

strategies that deliver high growth – brings

together my knowledge, skills and experience

as someone who has spent more than 20

years running, coaching and training high

growth companies. It gives you no-nonsense

advice and effective ideas you can implement

today to move your business forward.

What is a needle mover?

New York Times bestselling author and

executive coach, Christine Comaford, coined

the term ‘Needle Mover’, defining it as a

tangible result that, if accomplished, would

change everything for your business. In other

words, a needle mover is a game changer.

So, what are your game changers going to be?

How can you begin the Growth Phase – the

development of your company – from where

it is now into a high growth business? This

ebook is packed full of practical ideas.

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chapTer 2

how to read this book

Go and grab yourself a cup of coffee, turn

off your phone, shut down your inbox and

earmark some distraction-free time to read

through this ebook. All of the ideas, hints

and tips come from my own professional

experience of more than 20 years as a

Founder, Director or coach of high growth

companies. The insights you’ll find here offer

the turning point you’ve been looking for, a

way to propel your company into high growth

– as long as you take action!

Seriously, if you simply read this book and

then put it on your virtual bookshelf, along

with the lessons you’ve learned, you will have

missed a valuable opportunity to take your

business to the next level. Research suggests

that for knowledge to stick, you have to

implement it straight away.

So, why not print out a copy, grab a pen and

paper and make notes as you go along? At the

end of each article, I’ve included some helpful

‘needle moving’ activities – these are actions

you can take now to move your

business forward into becoming a high growth

company. You can see these needle movers

at a glance for ease of reference and instant

inspiration in the future.

To ensure you derive the best value from

this book, I always recommend turning these

action points into goals as well as ring fencing

time into your busy schedule to implement

them. In fact, to make sure you take action,

I would recommend that, at the end of

the book, you review the ideas and pick a

maximum of five. Over the next 30 days,

focus on implementing them. If you have a

business mentor, coach, colleague or friend,

share your goals and ask them to hold you to

account for their delivery.

chapTer 3

What is a high growth company?

Throughout this ebook, you’ll hear me use

the term ‘high growth’ – in fact, my entire

business and the High Growth Academy is

based around high growth companies – but

what exactly do I mean by this?

Let’s start with the official definition. The

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and

Development (OECD) defines a high-growth

company as ‘any firm with a minimum of ten

employees at the beginning of a three-year

period that achieves an average annualised

employment growth greater than 20 per cent

over that period’.

Personally, I like to up the ante on that

definition. I believe that a high growth

company is one that has attained double digit

growth on their bottom line over the same

time period.

It’s interesting to note that in the UK, just 6%

of all companies fit the OECD’s criteria for

high growth and yet these companies produce

54% of all new jobs!

In my experience, high growth companies

have qualities and characteristics that go far

beyond the numbers opposite.

characteristics of a high growth company

How do high growth companies achieve

success? Are they luckier than others (is it

a case of right time, right place)? Do they

have more time and resources than others?

Is it strong leadership, a great team, or good

products and services? Is it the ability to

identify market opportunities, develop a clear

strategy, and then execute it?

As this ebook shows, all of these qualities are

important but, while many companies have

them in spades, very few achieve high growth

status. In my experience, the key reasons for

this revolve around a failure to adopt the right

management practices in a disciplined way.

Growth is exciting but it creates pressure

on time and resources. When it happens

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rapidly, management teams tend to become

complacent and think, ‘what worked last year

will work next year’. It’s at this stage that they

fail to invest time in themselves as individuals

or a team. They forget that high growth is only

possible if you learn and grow faster than the

pace at which the company is growing.

Having spent most of my career running or

coaching high growth companies, I can say

with confidence that what sets them apart

is the ability to adapt and become flexible

enough in the market to consistently stay

ahead of their competition.

High growth companies also tend to share the

following common characteristics:

• A robust financial position

• A balanced combination of working

capital and equity

• Arrangements in place for additional and

contingency funds as required

• Achievement of above-average industry

and sector profitability

• Multiple opportunities for and

achievement of rapid growth in revenue

• A strong brand identity, profile and image

• Investment in new product development

and a portfolio of products at different

stages of the product life cycle

• A loyal base of customers whose needs

they fully understand

• A focus on building their brand

• A market leading position

• Identification and targeting of expanding

and/or niche market segments

• Substantial resources devoted to

innovation, research and development

activities

• Winning of awards and recognition as

an outstanding company in one or more

categories

• Competition on product differentiation,

quality and/or service rather than price

• A high performance management team

with functional specialists and experts.

This also means excellent human resource

policies and practices

The lifecycle of a high growth company

Of course, no company starts out as high

growth. There is a natural progression, or

lifecycle, that every high growth company

must undertake before it achieves this

enviable position. Take a look at the

descriptions below and discover where YOUR

company is at this moment in time.

The prove phase

In the early phase of a business, your priority

is to prove that the business model is viable.

It’s during this time that company leaders

often struggle to put the model in place,

working long hours and maintaining their

involvement in every aspect of the business.

During the Prove Phase, you’re constantly

asking the question: can this business deliver

consistently, successfully, and make a profit?

If you’re in the Prove Phase, you’ll find that

your focus isn’t just on putting processes in

place, but on having a flexible team that can

continue to refine the business model until

the business works. At this phase, you will

find yourself establishing systems for finance,

human resources, management, marketing,

sales, delivery, etc., to support the company’s

goals.

The test of whether your company is ready

to move out of the Prove Phase is whether

or not you, the CEO, can step away from the

business for a period of time and still have it

run effectively. If your business is at this stage,

then it has reached a crossroads.

For many companies, this is when the

CEO steps back, satisfied that the business

is making a good, steady income from a

proven model. Many people decide to let the

business linger at this stage indefinitely.

Of course, standing still or running at one

pace on the treadmill comes with its own

risks. By failing to complete the lifecycle of

your business, you can get stuck in a rut, fail

to keep up with the changing times or lose

touch with your customers. All can mean

the end for your business. This is where the

Growth Phase can make all the difference.

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The Growth phase

Entering the Growth Phase of the business

cycle is a choice. You may decide you would

prefer to stay with your viable business model

for as long as it remains viable, or you may set

your sights on more.

High growth companies reflect the energy of

the leaders who run them. These are people

who have made a conscious choice to operate

in a new way, to change their life and the

way they do business. They are people who

embrace discipline and a willingness to adopt

new skills and develop more refined thinking.

If you are serious about creating a high

growth company, you must be committed

to developing advanced leadership skills

because you will need these to nurture a high

performance team, develop a plan to keep

you ahead of the competition, and implement

your strategy effectively.

The Growth Phase always starts with

leadership. As the CEO, you must drive the

vision. Once you have the sure-fire vision and

the skills to make it a reality, you can move

into the final phase.

The achieve phase

Having achieved your vision for your business

by implementing the strategies you developed,

you have created predictable success. Again,

leaders of businesses in the Achieve Phase

face a choice – do you stay with the company

and redefine its vision before heading into a

new growth cycle, or do you move on to start

a new business or pursue another dream?

Only you will know what is right for you

when the time comes.

But, before you get there, you need to move

from the Prove Phase into the Growth Phase,

and achieve that initial vision.

Is your business ready for growth? Yes? Then

let’s get started.

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HIGH GROWTH MODEL

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chapTer 4

The high growth disciplines

Leading a high growth company comes with

its own set of challenges, many of which

require a new set of skills. In my experience,

successfully managing the Growth Phase of a

high growth business centres on developing

skills in these four essential areas:

Leadership – the Growth Phase requires a

different mindset, strong beliefs and lots of

confidence

Team building – as leader, it’s your job

to recruit the best and create a culture of

excellence

Strategy – you need to stay ahead of the

curve; this means thinking ahead of the

competition and the market

Implementation – take timely action; rapid

implementation will set you apart from 95%

of your competition

It’s a whole different mindset once you reach

the Growth Phase. While you may be used to

working in the Prove Phase and focusing on

trouble-shooting, problem solving and getting

ahead of the curve in order to ensure that

your business model works, as the leader of

a company in its Growth Phase, you must be

disciplined, measured, innovative, organised

and efficient to stay ahead of the curve.

Moving into this phase of the cycle, as

explained in Chapter 3, will require you to

develop advanced leadership skills. This

means having the right mindset for high

growth, as well as the skills required to build a

high performance team, create a plan to keep

you ahead of the competition, and implement

your strategy efficiently and effectively.

This part of the life cycle always starts with

leadership. You, as the CEO, must drive the

vision. Once you have a sure fire vision and

the skills to make it a reality, you will be ready

to move into the final phase.

In this ebook, I have brought together twenty

needle moving ideas across the four areas

above. Individually, each needle mover has

the potential to create lasting change in your

business. Combined, the knowledge in this

book can skyrocket your business into high

growth.

chapTer 5

start the needle moving

five needle movers for leadership

To move from the Prove Phase to the Growth

Phase, the evolution in your company needs

to begin with you, its leader.

The reason you must start with leadership

as a needle mover is because the impetus to

move forward into high growth must come

from you. Your staff will look to you as their

leader, and your attitude and behaviour will

very much determine the momentum for

growth that can be achieved. To be the leader

of a high growth company, you need to be

energetic, disciplined, authentic, and have the

right mindset.

Why is this? In part, the qualities above are

all characteristics that make you resilient to

the challenges that come with high growth

leadership. In addition, a fundamental part

of your role is to recruit, inspire, focus, direct

and re-energise your staff.

If you’ve grown your business from nothing,

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it’s tempting to feel that you have to be

involved in every project or even do the work

of those you lead. In fact, high growth will

only be possible if you step into your role

as leader by re-energising your team and

demonstrating your trust in them, giving them

the freedom to develop their own roles and

realise their potential.

You also need to show that you can be trusted

to take the helm and competently lead them

in the Growth Phase. Energy and trust are

contagious. If you feel excited, proactive and

positive about the direction of your business,

your staff are more likely to feel the same

way, especially if you give them opportunities

to prove their value.

Think about the best person you have worked

for. How would you describe them? In

seminars and with clients, I have asked this

question many times – below are the ten most

common answers:

• Encouraging

• Inspiring

• Kind

• Positive

• Integrity

• Supportive

• Fair

• Decisive

• Intelligent

• Visionary

Only three of those qualities have anything

to do with intellect; more than two-thirds

are emotional. In other words, it’s not about

what you know or even what you do, it’s

about how you make people feel along the

way. leadership idea 1: Great leadership starts with self-leadership

When I work with business leaders of

potential high growth companies, one of the

first questions they usually ask is, “how do I

get the best result out of my team?”, to which I

respond by saying that great leadership should

start with the question, “how do I get the best

result out of myself?”

Self-leadership is the practice of purposefully

influencing your own thinking, feeling and

behaviour to allow you to consistently achieve

your goals. In the past 10 years, it has become

a popular belief that self-leadership is the

backbone to all leadership and management.

This makes sense: if you are unable to lead

yourself, how can you be expected to lead

others? Before anyone can strive to be an

effective leader of a company, they must first

learn to master an effective leadership over

themselves.

Benefits

By using self-leadership in your daily life, you

will develop the discipline and dedication

to understand your own strengths and

weaknesses. This self-knowledge will give

you the direction and motivation to perform

at your highest ability and achieve your

objectives.

By becoming more self-aware, you gain

a greater insight into your own personal

behaviours and how they are impacting or

hindering the goals you wish to achieve. From

this understanding, you can begin to identify

what skills you need to develop, what limiting

beliefs you hold, and also where your

expertise lies.

Good self-leadership means taking

responsibility for the outcomes of your own

actions, whether good or bad. Instead of

blaming others, the external environment,

obstacles or unforeseen setbacks, when you

demonstrate self-leadership, you will have

the motivation and drive to continue and

persevere, and remain committed to your

goals.

By developing the skill of self-leadership, you

will begin to ingrain your thinking with the

idea that action leads to results. You will cut

out the procrastination and learn to make

decisions based on the information you have

at the time, knowing that your actions can

always be refined if needed.

As you can see, the benefits of self-leadership

are crucial to your individual development

and that of your company.

Below, I have highlighted four techniques for

developing self-leadership. Try to earmark

time in your week to practise these:

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Self-observation – Set aside time for some

serious reflection. Observe your own

behaviour and how your personal actions

and thoughts might hinder or help you when

trying to reach your goals. This will allow

you to see self-behaviours that need to be

changed, enhanced or eliminated.

Goal setting – Writing out objectives and

putting a clear plan in place increases

self-direction and self-motivation. Make a

plan of action for the most effective way

to accomplish your goals and then work

consistently until it is done.

Positive self-talk – Focus on keeping your

inner dialogue positive and useful rather than

negative and preventative. This will give you

a sense of personal power and direct your

thoughts to expect good results, so when

faced with a problem it will be seen as a

challenge to overcome, rather than a sign of

defeat.

External feedback – Actively seek some

feedback from an appropriate person. Be

open and able to receive and act on the

feedback.

Becoming a self-leader and maintaining self-

leadership takes commitment, discipline and

the motivation to improve. By using the ideas

highlighted above you can begin to master the

skill of self-leadership, and start reaping the

rewards for yourself and your company.

Move the needle

Spend ten minutes on self-observation.

• Have you identified what helps

and hinders you when it comes to

reaching your goals?

• Are there ways in which you

sabotage your own actions?

• Are there any patterns of behaviour

that you use to achieve the best

results?

• What can you do to duplicate these

behaviours or change them?

• Is your self-talk positive or negative?

leadership idea 2: how high growth leaders achieve more in a day

We all have the same 24 hours in the day, so

why is it that some people are consistently

productive while others feel as though they’re

constantly chasing their tail?

One of the key challenges I often hear around

time management is maintaining focus on

tasks which must be completed. Despite your

best intentions, you just can’t concentrate.

We’ve all been in this familiar, frustrating

situation, and it’s something that can really

undermine your performance.

Below are some strategies that will help you

improve your concentration and reduce your

daily distractions.

nutrition

It’s hard to stay focused if you’re not putting

the right fuel in your body or so time poor

that you skip meals. These simple nutritional

tips should help stabilise your energy levels

throughout the day, making it easier to focus

and avoid that post-lunch slump.

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Drink water – Many of us don’t think about

drinking water while we’re at work, yet

dehydration can make us feel tired, irritable,

slow, or even sick. When our brains don’t

have enough fluid, they can’t operate at peak

performance. Staying hydrated is an easy way

to improve your concentration during the day.

eat breakfast – The most important meal of

the day! It’s much harder to concentrate when

you’re hungry, so eat a well-balanced meal

before you go to work. You can also help your

concentration throughout the day by keeping

healthy snacks at your desk. Almonds, fresh

fruit, and vegetables are good choices.

Get up and move around – Ensure that you

get up and walk around at least once every

90 minutes. Research has shown that regular

walking can help increase your focus during

the day.

Mindset

focus on one task at a time – Don’t interrupt

your flow to answer emails, send text

messages, or take quick phone calls. Some

researchers believe that it can take up to 15

minutes for us to regain complete focus after a

distraction.

limit distractions – Close your office door

or put up a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign to let

colleagues know you need to focus or, if

you want to operate an open door policy,

then consider working from home or

elsewhere when you need to ring fence some

distraction-free time.

switch between high- and low-attention

tasks – This can give your brain a rest after

heavy concentration. For instance, if you

spend two hours working on your company’s

budget, you’ll probably feel tired afterward.

You can recharge your energy by working on

a low-attention task, like filing, for 15 minutes

before going back to your budget.

prioritise – Having too much to do can

be distracting, and this sometimes causes

procrastination. Or, you may quickly jump

from task to task, creating the illusion of work

– but in reality, you’re not accomplishing very

much. If you’re not sure where to start, take

10 minutes to step back and plan.

a few more tips

Take short breaks – Our minds can struggle

to focus intensely on tasks for eight hours a

day. This is where it can be better to divide

your work into one-hour segments, with a

five- to ten-minute break between tasks. This

short break will allow your mind to rest before

focusing again.

Do your hardest tasks when you’re most

alert (or eat a frog for breakfast) – This will

help you maximise your concentration.

Completing harder tasks at the beginning

of the day can also give you a sense of

accomplishment and take the pressure off.

reward yourself – For instance, make a rule

that if you focus intensively for 45 minutes on

one task, you can take a break to get a cup of

coffee when you’re done. Little “self-rewards”

can often be great motivators.

Turn off email – It can be tremendously

distracting to have emails pinging into your

inbox every few minutes – you’re tempted

to stop what you’re doing, and answer them

right away. If you can, schedule your email

to download only a few times each day, and

deal with all of your emails at set times.

Move the needle

Look after your nutrition and mindset to

improve your concentration and reduce

daily distractions.

• Are you eating properly and drinking

water regularly?

• Have you prioritised your workload?

• Have you minimised distractions by

putting a ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the

door or turning off your email?

• Did you start your day by completing

your hardest task first?

• Have you thought about how you

can reward yourself for completing a

task?

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leadership idea 3: are you spending enough time thinking?

One of the key characteristics of a successful

CEO is that they spend time thinking. It

sounds obvious, but in today’s world, where

key customers might demand immediate

attention, operational issues arise or

employees demand your time, it is easy to

forget to prioritise thinking time.

Bill Gates used to take off twice a year on

‘think weeks’, during which he would spend

18-hour days in a cabin in the woods thinking

about the future of Microsoft. Many of the

company’s most significant decisions (the

move to Windows, the pursuit of the internet

“tidal wave”, etc.) came immediately after a

Gates’ think week.

For a CEO of a high growth business, I would

advocate that you schedule time at least

once a week to think and plan with a focus

on important strategic matters. Make time

to get away from the day-to-day distractions

and focus on deep thinking, planning,

and decision-making. Isolate yourself to

concentrate on big-picture issues. Spend time

alone digesting all the information you are

bombarded with and develop the big ideas

to take your business to the next level of

performance.

Then, once a month, schedule a day away

from the office to think and plan. With no

distractions whatsoever, put on your CEO hat

and spend time reviewing and improving your

business.

If you need some great questions to stimulate

your thinking and provide a framework during

your weekly scheduled thinking time, try the

following (complements of a client):

1. What can I do to create vs. fight over

demand?

2. What BUSINESS am I in vs. what

PRODUCT do I sell? What does my

product or service ‘offer’ the consumer

(feelings)?

3. What are my underutilized assets or

strengths?

4. What if my competition was not my

benchmark? What can I do to make the

competition irrelevant by creating a leap

in value or experience for the consumer/

buyer?

5. What are some unexpectedly good things

that have happened and what can I do to

“fertilize” those?

6. What are the businesses that I admire or

enjoy doing business with, and what can I

do to replicate this experience?

7. What can I innovate to better meet my

ideal customer’s needs/wants?

8. What is the culture of my business? How

does it need to change?

9. What are the opportunities I am seeing in

the market and how can I begin to drive

my business in that direction?

10. What needs to happen (specifically) for me

and my business to be in the top 10% in

my industry?

11. What are my leading indicators of growth?

12. Where is there a niche of “compromised”

customers who are displeased with the

industry standard?

13. Who are my best or core customers and

what can I do to show my appreciation of

them?

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Move the needle

Put ‘think’ time in your diary and make

this time non-negotiable.

• Have you scheduled think time for

a minimum of 30 minutes once a

week?

• Have you scheduled one day a

month away from the office to plan?

• Have you identified the big-picture

issues that relate to your company?

• Do you have a list of questions you

use as a framework during your think

time?

leadership idea 4: how high growth leaders spot opportunities

To become a high growth leader, you need to

be able to recognise an opportunity when you

see one. This means being able to identify

a problem or gap and come up with an

innovative solution.

But how, exactly, does one become good at

spotting opportunities? In my experience, it’s

all about where you place your focus.

The book Focus, by Tory Higgins and Heidi

Halvorson, explores the idea that there are

two main types of focus – promotion and

prevention.

If you have a promotion focus, you will see

new ideas within the context of the potential

for advancement and achievement. In other

words, you are promotion-focused when you

think about what you might gain if you are

successful.

When your focus is on prevention, you’ll

be more likely to approach a new idea with

a view to avoiding danger, keeping things

running smoothly and protecting yourself

against the risk of losing everything for which

you’ve worked so hard.

Prevention focus is important because

it underpins careful planning, accuracy,

reliability, and thoroughness. However, it

can block your creativity, open-mindedness,

and the confidence to take chances – all

things that promotion-focus nurtures.

Recent research by Andranik Tumasjan and

Reiner Braun from Germany’s TUM School

of Management shows that you need the

combination of promotion and prevention

focus to be an opportunity-spotter.

In their research, Tumasjan and Braun asked

254 UK entrepreneurs from a variety of

industries to take an assessment to determine

their dominant focus, and to then demonstrate

their opportunity-recognition skills. They

were provided with comments from real

focus groups that dealt with five kinds of

problems associated with footwear (durability,

comfort, performance, style and price). After

looking them over, the entrepreneurs were

told to make a list of the underlying problems

revealed by the comments, and to provide

solutions for those problems.

The results painted a very clear picture:

Promotion-focused entrepreneurs were

better able to detect opportunities — i.e.

they generated more solutions to identified

problems. In addition, those solutions were

judged by independent raters to be more

innovative than prevention-focused solutions.

That’s not all. Being promotion-focused even

compensated for low levels of creative and

entrepreneurial confidence, which are usually

considered to be essential ingredients for

success. Equipped with the right focus, even

low-confidence entrepreneurs were among

the top performers.

Below, I have provided some effective

techniques for creating promotion focus.

The more often you use any or all of these

techniques, the more automatic the shift to

promotion focus will become.

If you don’t have enough promotion focus at

the moment, the following techniques should

help you shift your mindset. The more often

you use any or all of these techniques, the

more automatic the shift to promotion focus

will become:

Write down several goals you have for any

new initiative or idea. For each goal, make a

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list of ways in which you will gain something

if you are successful. Read through these goals

and potential gains on a daily basis or before

undertaking any important task.

Picture yourself five or ten years down the

road as you would ideally like to be. What

are your aspirations? Your dreams? What do

you hope to accomplish? Thinking about your

ideal future self will put you in a promotion

focus.

Reflect on your past. Think about a recent

big accomplishment — a time when you felt

really motivated about what you were able to

achieve. Thinking about our past gains puts us

in a promotion focus.

Move the needle

Practise creating a promotion focus.

• Have you written down your goals

for a new initiative as well as what

you hope to gain from its success?

• Are you reading these goals and

potential gains every day to help

you create a positive mindset?

• Have you pictured your ideal future

five and ten years from now?

• What does it look like?

• Have you thought about a past

accomplishment and what it felt like

to achieve your goals?

leadership idea 5: are you communicating effectively with your team?

With the rapid evolvement of technology and

communication tools, we have an opportunity

to raise communication levels with our staff

and customers to a totally new level, and

yet, more often than not, communication

within companies remains largely ineffective.

Although there are lots of reasons for this, a

fundamental lack of discipline is often the key

contributor.

Why is discipline so important to

communication? I believe that discipline helps

us to be consistent in our efforts – it enables

us to plan ahead, wait, refine, and identify

the best channels for engagement. After all,

for communication to be effective, it needs to

delivered in a deliberate and timely manner,

aimed at keeping staff informed, updated, and

in the loop.

When everyone is on the same page

communication wise, it’s easier to listen to

your staff and keep the whole team engaged

in the growth of the company, whereas

inconsistent communication can lead to

gossip and misinformation, which is bad for

morale.

Below, you’ll find my top five communication

tips for high growth leaders:

plan, plan, plan. Too often, the excuse for

not planning a communication strategy is that

‘I am always talking to my team’. Maybe so,

but at best this delivers an inconsistent and

irregular message. A communication strategy

should be an integral part of the annual

business plan.

Use variety. Most businesses will benefit

from a variety of media and frequencies to

deliver the message. The traditional meeting

still has its place, and implemented alongside

newsletters, forums and social networking

platforms, there is no excuse for the message

not to be clearly understood.

solicit feedback. An annual culture survey

will give some great feedback on the culture

of the business from your team’s perspective.

2726

Their perception is their reality, so look for the

trends that emerge and implement a few key

strategies to address these. Remember that a

few strategies implemented well will always

be better received than several strategies

implemented poorly.

encourage participation. Communication

strategies which include input from your team

members often enhance the experience.

Meetings, for example, are traditionally

dominated by senior management with little

input from others in the room. Try reversing

this so that more junior staff members have

the opportunity to present their areas of

responsibility and accountability to the team,

highlighting their successes and identifying

areas of support required. This will enable

your senior management to create a more

rounded strategic perspective.

Newsletters and social networking forums also

provide opportunities for wider involvement.

Understanding self and others. Different

people have different communication styles

– by understanding what they are, it is much

easier to improve communication in the

workplace.

There are several instruments available –

I recommend and use DISC, which is a

personality profile test built around William

Marston’s theory that people illustrate their

emotions through four main behaviour types

– Dominance, Inducement, Submission and

Compliance.

DISC behaviour profiling is cost-effective,

simple to administer and, importantly, does

not require interpretation as the reports are

written in plain language. The findings can

offer an excellent starting point for identifying

which communication methods would work

better than others.

Communication should not be difficult. It is

certainly as much art as science and what

works well for one business may not work for

others. However, it starts with discipline and

focus.

Move the needle

Make sure communication in your

company is underpinned by discipline.

• Have you written and shared your

annual communication strategy?

• Have you considered how a

newsletter or presence on different

social media platforms could help

you communicate key messages?

• Have you sent out an annual culture

survey to your team to identify how

they feel about how the company

communicates?

• Have you given the floor to less

senior staff in meetings?

• Have you used psychometric

profiling such as DISC to identify

different communication styles in

your company?

chapTer 6

Moving to the next level five needle movers to build a high performance team

Having spent some time in the last chapter

looking at how you need to lead the

development of your high growth company,

it’s time to turn your attention to your team.

To achieve your company’s potential, you

need to get ‘the right people on the bus in the

right seats’. Excellent business books such as

Good to Great by Jim Collins state you must

get the tight team in place before focusing on

what you do. Yet so often businesses forget

this and fail to manage their teams effectively.

Below are some of the key points I’ve learned

over the last 20-plus years when it comes to

building a high performance team:

The strength of your team is critical.

Recruiting weak people leads to weak results.

Find the best people and pay them well…. It

saves money in the long term.

The tougher the economy, the better the

2928

people you need. There is no way to survive a

struggling market with weak people.

Average people are easy to recruit and

difficult to fire.

Always be upgrading your talent and never be

afraid to pay them what they need to make.

One superstar is of greater value than an

unlimited number of average performers.

Never wait to address personnel issues or

average performance. Either they are doing

a great job, or they aren’t. If they aren’t, take

action. You are not there to beg people to do

their jobs.

The cost of being long suffering with an

employee who is not performing is far greater

than the discomfort of having a tough review

and speedy termination.

Team idea 1: how high growth companies engage their teams

When it comes to job satisfaction, financial

rewards may be lower on the list than most

people think. Being happy with your job

seems to depend more on the intangibles:

feeling part of a team and being valued and

appreciated consistently outrank money when

employees are polled about job satisfaction.

In fact, research would suggest that a 10%

increase in trust has the same impact on

employee satisfaction as a 36% pay increase.

With this in mind, here are some tips and

strategies for retaining and motivating your

team:

Clearly define your vision. Make sure that

your vision is shared with your team. People

want to know the individual role they have to

play in driving success.

Give your employees what they want and

need.

Don’t just assume that each and every one

of your employees has all the tools, training,

and support from their managers they need –

check in with them personally and find out.

Communicate well and often. Training

sessions, memos, newsletters, FAQs, and

regular meetings can all be used to present

your vision to your employees. Make sure

to ask questions, and if they are confused,

redesign the way the information reaches

them.

Get everyone engaged. Figure out a way to

get all of your employees engaged in planning

and decision-making. That way the project

becomes their ‘baby’.

Coach for success and practice random

acts of kindness. Feedback is another great

motivator. Don’t wait for the periodic reviews;

instead, offer feedback as often as possible.

Positive feedback should be given right away,

to encourage more of the same performance.

Negative feedback should also be given ASAP,

so that employees have the opportunity to

self-correct.

Act fairly, respect, and create trust. Use your

judgment, wisdom, and experience to create

a supportive environment. When problems

arise, examine the circumstances, understand

the context, and only then pass judgment.

Trust and verify, but also try to make work

fun. Good bosses pay attention to the big

picture and the details, and care about both

the product and the employees.

Give special attention to high-potential

employees because, even in a tough

economy, high-potential employees have

other opportunities. To keep them engaged,

consider putting more resources into career

development and training. Or perhaps you

can give them new projects that will help the

company adapt to the changing market, grow,

and develop.

Be creative to avoid downsizing and layoffs.

The key is for employees to trust that

management is doing everything possible to

retain them. Voluntary steps to reduce costs

can be employed to avert disaster.

Implement incentive programmes, no matter

of what kind of business you are in. A recent

study found that performance could be

increased by 22% in individuals and 44% in

teams with such programmes in place.

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Move the needle

Review your internal communications.

• How clear is your vision and how

are you keeping it at the front of the

team’s mind?

• Are you using internal

communications to their full

potential and at the best frequency?

• Are you keeping everyone engaged

by involving employees in planning

and decision-making?

• Are you delivering positive and

negative feedback in a fair and

timely manner?

• Have you identified your high

potential employees?

Team idea 2: creating a high growth culture

In many coaching sessions, discussions about

business performance usually centre on topics

like marketing, financial management, and

ways to improve productivity. While these

factors are important, in my experience they

are best leveraged when employees are

engaged, aligned, and motivated to win.

In my early career leading many joint ventures

and organisational changes, I learned that

culture can be powerfully leveraged to

enhance long-term success. Yet many leaders

in organisations don’t make culture a priority.

Every individual on every team in a company

can work together to deliver beyond what

is deemed possible. For employees to do

that, they need to feel a powerful sense of

purpose, reinforced by a culture of ownership,

accountability, trust, and continuous learning.

These are some of the steps that will help you

establish a high performance culture:

set clear expectations

If they don’t know where they’re going, how

can you expect your employees to know

how to get there? One of the first steps

towards creating a high growth culture is to

communicate a clear vision for the company’s

future and set out a road map for how you’re

going to get there. Get a mandate for change

from the team, so they become ready to make

the necessary sacrifices.

role model positive attitudes and behaviours

Leaders in your company - starting with you,

the CEO - must consistently act with the same

business authenticity that they want to see in

their teams.

In all teams and companies I led, we

published five or six ‘rules of the game’ that

we all expected of each other so that we

could share, learn, innovate, and grow as

individuals, as well as members of a team.

build trust

Trust in the senior leadership team is an

important indicator of organisational health.

To build trust, you must actively show your

employees that you make fair decisions, value

people, and value good work. You must also

demonstrate trust in your employees because

it is a reciprocal ethos.

execute via a high-performance culture

A culture of ownership, accountability,

and continuous learning leads to powerful

execution. Organisational leaders should keep

encouraging employees to take ownership of

both the problems and the solutions.

In today’s era of accelerating change,

culture can still lead to unexpectedly strong

performance. The good news is that, while

it requires time, commitment, and a strong

leader, a high performance culture can be

built into almost any business.

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Move the needle

Identify your five ‘rules of the game’ and

begin building them into the culture of

your business.

• Have you documented and

communicated a clear vision?

• Have you involved your team in

developing your rules of the game?

• How can you ensure these rule of

the game are followed?

• Have you checked your own

behaviour? You need to be an

example.

• Are you constantly thinking about

ways to build trust by showing that

you value good people and good

work?

Team idea 3: Total transparency is good for a high growth business

Imagine a company where every employee

knows exactly how they had performed

the previous week, compared to everyone

else, and could look up, in a moment, how

everyone else was doing. Or a business

owner could go online, any time of the day or

night, and see how his team was performing,

who deserved a bonus, whose performance

needed addressing, even if those people were

customer service staff or engineers.

Total transparency, the idea of everyone

knowing everything, could actually be

a major driver of increased business

performance. It is often cited that the biggest

reason businesses fail is because people lose

focus and get off track. It’s particularly true

of high growth companies driving to meet

ambitious sales and profit targets. By moving

to total transparency across an organisation,

distractions, fears, and negativity can be

removed.

The principles of total transparency improve

business performance in terms of focus,

engagement, and developing and recruiting

talent. Here is how it could work in practice

within your business:

1. Focus: At the beginning of each quarter,

every employee sets measurable and

visible objectives and key results. Each

individual’s progress and priorities are

clear, and provide a yardstick for growth.

2. Engagement: Total transparency increases

commitment and motivation to the

vision because employees’ measures

are explicitly linked to performance,

ensuring high levels of fairness. Everyone

is benchmarked, all data is available for

inspection and analysis, and all employees

are treated accordingly. The reward

response leads to increased engagement

from the strong sense of autonomy the

approach brings about; in other words,

giving your employees a sense of control

over their own destiny.

3. Growing Talent: By making the successes

of top performers accessible and easy

to compare against the department or

company as a whole, newer employees

are motivated to excel through mirroring

the best practices of high-performing

employees.

This mirroring is extremely powerful in

encouraging positive work performance.

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Move the needle

Ask your employees to set measurable

quarterly goals and ensure that everyone

is aligned with those goals.

• Have you considered how to create

transparency across your company?

• Have you checked that everyone

understands their goals?

• How can you communicate the

results?

• How can you use the results in a

way that supports transparency of

performance across all levels of the

company?

• Have you decided how to reward or

celebrate talent and the successes of

your company’s top performers?

Team idea 4: how to attract the best talent to your company

High growth means recruiting; good recruiting

sustains high growth.

How can you set yourself apart from a sea

of competitors vying for the same top level

candidates?

build relationships before you’re looking to

hire

Long-term outreach can be a key factor to

acquiring top talent, and establishing rapport

is the single most important differentiator.

Even before you have an immediate position

to fill, start developing relationships with the

best individuals. Of course, you must do your

research and tailor your approach to build a

personal connection with the most qualified

candidates.

Once you plant a seed with qualified

candidates, you can show them the

benefits of working for your company early

on, allowing the relationship to naturally

develop over time instead of during a rushed

recruitment process.

Develop internal advocates

Your existing employees know the company

and USP better than anyone else. Use this to

your advantage. Make them visible during the

first stages of recruitment.

Before a potential employee steps through

your door, they should have a positive

perception of your brand and a good idea of

whether their skills match your needs, and

vice versa.

While the rest of your competitors are using

professional recruitment companies to handle

the hiring process, have directors or managers

make contact with recruits over the phone.

Tailor your job descriptions

When you find a great candidate, you must

prove your company’s value. Let them know

upfront you care about and can provide the

tools necessary to propel their career forward.

Just keep in mind, offering a higher salary

or vague job descriptions do not qualify as

differentiators. This is what everyone else is

doing. In the long run, it’s not all about the

salary. The top candidates want to contribute

value and develop a meaningful connection

with their employers. Therefore play to their

strengths and nurture their passion. Customise

the role so they can perform at their best.

3736

Move the needle

• Look at what you are doing to

develop your network.

• How involved is your team with the

recruitment process?

• Are you being flexible about job

descriptions to create opportunities

to play to your team members’

strengths?

• Is there a potential candidate for a

future role outside your company

that you could phone today to begin

nurturing a business relationship?

Team idea 5: how high growth companies take training to a new level

Is there a member of your team who is not

performing? What do you do? Get rid of

them? Blame yourself for hiring them in the

first place?

Well, the traditional large organisation

solution to the capability problem is to train

that person. Unfortunately, this approach may

be based on some false assumptions. Firstly,

that training will actually make them more

capable. Secondly, that they want and have

the capacity to learn what they need to know,

and, thirdly, that the training will be good

enough to bridge the capability gap.

I’ve worked with organisations where

thousands of people who didn’t wish to

learn anything have been sent for mandatory

training that was so poor that the chance of

learning anything was zero - all for the sake of

hitting corporate targets!

So, how can we make learning worthwhile?

It’s very straightforward and needs to be done

in this order:

1. Identify what needs to be learned.

2. Identify and navigate obstacles to learning

– e.g. factors within the person such as

their preferred learning style, opportunities

to practise at work, support from their

manager and so on.

3. Identify the best learning method – there

are plenty of ways to learn. A training

course is just one approach – not always

the best.

4. Just do it – deliver learning using the best

method, addressing particular obstacles,

targeting specific needs and providing

opportunities to practice and apply the

learning.

In my experience, many managers start at

step three – they send someone on a training

course without identifying whether a course

is really the best solution, what they want

them to learn, or recognising that there may

be obstacles to learning. This is quite simply a

waste of time and money.

These issues are multiplied many times

over when we are considering becoming a

learning, high growth company rather than

a bunch of learning individuals. Collective

learning is much harder.

Successful high growth companies approach

training with the view that it is inherently

good. They then follow these three strands of

behaviour:

1. Decide whether training is needed in

the first place by getting to grips with the

learning needs of your team. Recognise

that there are many ways to learn and

training is just one. Fit the method to the

need – not the reverse.

2. If training is the answer, do it well - line

up expectations, adjust the approach to

meet learning styles and ensure follow-up

opportunities to practise what has been

learned.

3. Avoid the ‘premature evaluation’ trap in

training (i.e. a questionnaire at the end

of the session that asks “how was it for

you?”) and take some time evaluate what

has been learned and how it has been

applied in the day-to-day running of your

company.

3938

Move the needle

Spend some time reviewing your team’s

training needs.

• Have you created an individual

training plan for members of your

team?

• What evidence do you have that

specific training has been helpful?

• Can staff demonstrate how they

have been able to apply what they

learned in training to their roles?

• Is there something you could do

differently to help someone who is

underperforming?

• Have you identified the best learning

methods for individuals in your

team?

chapTer 7

Stepping up the pace - five needle movers for creating a high growth strategy

Developing strategy takes time and resources.

It requires the time and commitment of

some of the most experienced and important

people in your company. So, if you or

your team are not willing to invest the time

required, I recommend that you don’t do it.

Poor planning is often worse than no planning

at all.

If you want to achieve high growth, a strategy

is essential. This is where you ‘out think’ your

competitors and get your company and team

aligned behind achieving success.

There are many reasons why a strategy is

important but, for me, these are the key ones:

1) To set direction and priorities

Firstly, a strategy is like a road map for

your company – it sets the direction and

establishes priorities, the key things you need

to do to reach your destination.

It defines your view of success (how will you

know you’ve arrived if you haven’t decided

on a destination?!) and prioritises the activities

that will make your vision a reality. The

strategy will help your people understand

the roadmap and know what they should be

working on, especially what they should be

working on first.

2) To get everyone on the same page

If you find that you have departments working

to achieve different aims, or going in different

directions, you need a strategy.

Once you define your direction, you can get

operations, sales, marketing, administration,

finance, and all other departments moving

together to achieve the company’s goals.

3) To simplify decision making

If your leadership team has trouble saying no

4140

to new ideas or potential initiatives, you need

a strategy. This will have already prioritised

the activities necessary for success. By asking

the question, “Does this take us closer to

our goals or further away?” – in other words,

knowing your priorities – it’s far easier to say

no to distracting initiatives.

4) To drive alignment

Many organisations have hard-working teams

putting all their efforts into areas that have

little to no effect on long-term success. Your

strategy serves as the vehicle for answering

the question, “Where are our energies and

resources best placed to maximise our

strategic success?”

5) To communicate the message

Many leaders walk around with a virtual

strategy locked in their head; they know

where their company needs to be and the key

activities that will get it there. Unfortunately,

the strategy isn’t down on paper and hasn’t

been communicated thoroughly. As a result,

few people are acting on it. To achieve your

success, a strategy must be shared. When

your team, suppliers, and even customers

know where you’re going, they will help you

get there.

strategy idea 1: Tips to creating a high growth strategy

Creating a strategy is an area that, ultimately,

will lead to business success or failure. The

recent spate of business failures on the high

street was driven by poor business strategies

in response to changing consumer behaviour.

Business strategy creation and implementation

takes place on a daily basis within all

organisations at many different levels. As a

leader, you need to understand exactly how

these secondary strategies are working in

accordance to the overall strategic business

plan. Is there a split in focus or lack of

cohesion?

Achieving sustained business growth relies

on the ability of a company to formulate and

implement good business strategies. Below,

I have highlighted five important areas to

consider:

1. Do your senior management truly

understand the company’s strategic vision?

As we explored in Chapter 5, the success

of an organisation begins with the strength

of its leadership. Problems may arise if

the senior management team are not on

the same page. A great way to determine

if your key managers are on board with

the strategic vision of your company is

to simply ask each of them to articulate

the vision. The strategic vision of the

organisation sets the tone for goals and

subsequent actions. Without alignment,

you won’t progress very far.

2. Are key managers empowered to plot

and execute strategy within their own

area of responsibility, e.g. business units,

departments, or functional areas? When

you get your strategic business right, it will

allow key leaders in the various areas of

your business to set goals and objectives

in alignment with the wider organisational

vision. Leadership is essential at every

level of your company, and sustained

business growth will only be possible

when the entire organisation is working

in harmony with the strategic vision.

Each part of the organisation has a role

to play in achieving business growth. The

leaders within those parts of the business

must have the power and ability to create

strategies.

3. Do leaders, as well as individual

contributors, understand how their

competitive strategies create value and

growth for the organisation? Strategies

should not be created for personal or

meaningless reasons; they should always

have a purpose to them. Business growth

and the fulfilment of the overall strategic

vision of the organisation is the only

reason to create a business strategy.

Strategic business planning is done to

create sustainable business growth.

4. Are you conducting periodic reviews

of the strategy within your own area of

responsibility? Business strategies must

be measured and reviewed on a weekly,

monthly and quarterly basis. Have

you identified your key performance

indicators? Is everyone working to their

agreed goals and objectives? Are any

areas of the business being side-lined or

distracted by activities that do not support

the overall direction of the company’s

growth? A business strategy without

proper measurements in place is a poor

strategy by definition.

5. What issues will shape your future and

should be acted upon?

4342

6. Business growth and business strategy

must be created with the future in mind.

What has worked well in the past will

not always be successful in the future.

Forward thinking leadership is intelligent

leadership.

Move the needle

Define your strategic vision and identify

the process of its implementation.

• Have you asked your senior

management team how they would

each define the company’s strategic

vision? Is there alignment?

• Have you empowered your

key leaders to plot and execute

strategy within their own area of

responsibility?

• Do your key leaders and other

relevant individuals understand how

competitive strategies create value

and growth within the company?

• Are you reviewing your strategy on a

weekly, monthly and quarterly basis?

• Have you identified current issues

in your market that will shape your

future?

strategy idea 2: Ten timeless strategy questions

Business strategy did not become a formal

focus until 1960 and really grew as a

discipline from the 1970s – in large part due

to increased economic turbulence and a need

to improve and change.

Improvements in strategic thinking

contributed significantly to business success.

However, there have also been a large

number of fleeting fads during the last 50

years that contributed to business failures.

The most important question to ask is, “Does

our business strategy give us the right to

win?” You should not be continually looking

for and adopting new theories in the hope of

finding the quick solution to success. There

isn’t one! The right approach is to develop

your own method that focuses on building the

underlying capabilities of your business.

Consultancy practice McKinsey & Company

has consulted with two-thirds of the world’s

top Fortune 100 companies in the area of

business strategy. They use what they refer to

as the ‘ten timeless tests of strategy’. The test

questions are paraphrased below:

Will your strategy beat the market?

Does your business strategy tap a true source

of advantage?

Is your strategy detailed and clear enough to

compete?

Does your business strategy put you ahead of

trends?

Is your business strategy founded on

privileged insights?

Does your strategy embrace uncertainty?

Does your business strategy balance long-term

commitment and flexibility?

Is your strategy contaminated by bias?

Is there conviction to execute?

Have you translated your business strategy

into a plan of action?

4544

Move the needle

Focus on building the underlying

capabilities of your business.

• “Does our strategy give us the right

to win?” – Have you asked this

question?

• Have you asked yourself the ten

timeless tests of strategy?

• Have you identified areas that need

strengthening or improving?

• Have you put time in your diary to

work on your high growth strategy?

• Have you translated your business

strategy into a plan of action?

strategy idea 3: how to take complexity out of your business

High growth businesses are great at removing

complexity, and focusing on those areas

which really make the difference.

If you feel the time has come to streamline

your processes and operations, below is a

seven-step simplification process, which you

can implement in any order depending on

where you might be able to make the greatest

difference most quickly.

Over time, it’s important to use all seven steps

so that simplicity becomes a core capability

of your company and not just a one-time

initiative.

Quick wins

An easy starting point for simplification is to

get rid of stupid rules and low-value activities,

time-wasters that exist in abundance in

most organisations. Look, for example, at

how many people need to review and sign

off on small purchases or how many times

documents need to be reviewed before they

are presented. By reducing the number of

people involved, you are also showing an

increased level of trust in your staff.

Take an outside-in perspective

Simplification should be driven by the need to

add value to your customers. So a key step in

the process is to proactively clarify what your

customers really want and what you can do to

make them more successful.

prioritise, prioritise, prioritise

One of the keys to simplification is to figure

out what’s really important, and continually

reassess the priority list as new things are

added. This, at the very least, should be part

of your quarterly planning process.

Take the shortest path from here to there

Once it’s clear that you are working on the

right things, identify and take out the extra

steps in core processes.

stop being so nice

One of the patterns that causes or exacerbates

complexity is the tendency to not speak up

about poor practices. This is particularly

true when people hesitate to challenge

more senior people who unintentionally

cause complexity through poor meeting

management, unclear assignments,

unnecessary emails, over-analysis, or other

bad managerial habits. To counter this trend,

use constructive feedback to keep your team

honest about personal behaviours that might

cause complexity.

simplify your organisation’s structure

Another source of complexity is the structural

tendency to add layers of management, which

often leads to managers supervising just one

or two people. When that happens, managers

feel compelled to add value by questioning

everything that their subordinates are doing,

which adds work and reduces morale. To

reduce this kind of complexity and stay away

from micromanaging, take a periodic look at

the organisation’s structure and find ways to

reduce levels and management, and increase

spans of control.

Don’t let complexity creep back in

Finally, remember that complexity is like a

weed in the garden that can always creep

4746

back in. Whenever you feel like you’ve got it

solved, do steps one through six over again. Move the needle

• Identify ways to streamline your

systems and processes that will give

you the quickest win.

• Have you identified any rules – e.g.

how many people have to sign off

promotional materials for print –

which you can change today to

simplify your procedures?

• Have you explored how you can add

value to the customer experience?

• Have you reviewed your marketing

messages and how they can be

made clearer?

• Have you identified your priorities

for this quarter?

• Have you looked at how you

can simplify the structure of your

company?

strategy idea 4: how high growth companies innovate their business model

Over the last few months, business press has

paid particular attention to the fashion retailer

Zara as their sales and success have continued

to grow. Before this recent attention, the

business model of Zara had gone virtually

unnoticed for over 30 years, allowing Zara’s

parent company, Inditex, to grow from zero

to almost $20 billion in revenues. Why wasn’t

it copied immediately? How can it be so

sustainable and continue growing? The answer

lies in business model innovation.

Zara’s business model is designed to enable

fast response to fashion trends, which allows

Zara to ensure that its store shelves are always

stocked with the most fashionable clothes.

Zara was founded in 1975 and its parent

company, the Inditex Group, went public in

2001. Within the first five years of its launch,

Amancio Ortega, the founder of Zara, figured

out that responsiveness and speed were key

to dominance in fashion retail, as opposed

to costs, so Zara produced in expensive

locations and used expensive shipping modes

to react to trends faster. This business model

innovation has served Zara well for over 30

years now.

Not surprisingly, the Zara model has attracted

its fair share of imitators and followers in

recent years — Uniqlo, Top Shop and H&M

being the most prominent. However, what

is surprising is how long it took for the

world to catch on to Zara’s business model

and to start imitating it. For over 20 years,

Zara’s model was rarely mentioned by press

and understood by the competition, with

reactions ranging from dismissive mockery

to indifference. It is only in the last five years

that Zara has even been recognised as an

innovator in the popular press, but even today,

few people sufficiently appreciate the Zara

model.

In contrast, consider the fate of another

innovator: Apple revolutionised the

smartphone market with the iPhone launch

in 2007. Within months, its innovative touch

screen interface was seen on similar looking

phones from Samsung. Today, five years since

its launch, the revolutionary interface, and

the subsequent application platform are all

standard features in smartphones from many

of Apple’s competitors.

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Now compare the fate of Apple to that of

Zara. While Apple’s advantages from product

innovation were imitated by the competition

within five years, why does Zara continue to

profit from its business model innovation?

I believe the answer lies in the source of these

innovations; in particular, Zara innovated its

business model, as opposed to product or

technology, as in the case of Apple’s iPhone.

Business model innovations share some

unique characteristics that make the benefits

from them more sustainable.

First, the innovation is often in the firm’s

processes that may not even be directly visible

to competitors. While a new product design

must be launched with some fanfare, business

model innovations remain relatively hidden.

Second, copying a business model innovation

from the competition is much harder than

imitating the competitor’s product design.

Business model innovations are often

embedded in the firm’s DNA, they define

its core operating systems and for the

competition to change and adapt its business

model is much harder.

Move the needle

Define your business model (think about

this in terms of, “How do we want to

make money?”)

• What is your business model? In

other words, have you identified

how your business creates, delivers

and captures value?

• Have you considered how you can

innovate by focusing on the core

processes of your business model?

• Have you asked your customers

what matters to them? Is it speed,

reliability, responsiveness, costs or

something else?

• Do your core operating systems or

processes need updating to cope

with the future direction of your

business model?

strategy idea 5: Why high growth companies stop growing

We’ve all come across examples of high

growth companies that suddenly hit the wall.

However, the reality behind many of these

companies, whether large or small, is that

periodic slowdowns are inevitable, even if

the company is fundamentally solid. That

doesn’t mean that the leadership team can’t

do anything to slow the decline or reverse

it more quickly. Taking action requires an

understanding of the three forces that always

will affect high growth companies.

The first is the law of large numbers. As a

company gets bigger, each percentage of

incremental revenue suddenly represents

a fundamentally larger number. As the

base grows, the amount of new business

needed to make a material difference also

rises, increasing the pressure on sales to

find new markets, new categories, and new

geographies.

A company’s growth is also inhibited by

market maturity. Over time, markets follow

more predictable patterns as buyers become

familiar with and loyal to particular brands

or companies. Eventually, as the market

becomes more crowded, prices tend to

stabilise, reducing the ability to grow through

price increases. Finally, some markets reach

a saturation point either because of limited

demographic growth or commoditisation of

products. Taken together, these product and

market life cycle forces all put pressure on the

typical sources of growth for sales.

The third reason that growth slows down is

psychological self-protection. As a company

gets larger, there is more pressure to protect

the underlying business and less willingness to

cannibalise it through innovation. As a result,

at the very moment when the company needs

new sources of growth, there is a tendency

to play it safe and focus more on adapting

existing products and services, rather than

breakthrough opportunities.

The combination of these natural forces

almost always slows down growth, which is

why we shouldn’t be surprised when high

growth companies hit periodic speed bumps.

The challenge, of course, is what to do about

it. Here are two recommendations that I make

to my clients:

Regularly re-examine your business model.

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In the face of the forces described above,

most business models eventually get stale and

need to be either abandoned or refreshed. So

periodically take a look at what you do, and

how you do it, and ask yourself if it still makes

sense.

Think about getting smaller in order to

get bigger. A second way to cope is to

periodically do some pruning. Like trees

that get too spindly, organisations also grow

unnecessary branches that reduce the health

of the overall company. These need to be cut

back in order to allow new shoots to have the

resources to flourish.

There is no such thing as a company that

grows forever without eventually hitting the

wall, or at least slowing down to go over

a speed bump. Through pruning and the

exploration of new business models however,

you can minimise the slow downs and give

your company a better chance at long-term

growth.

Move the needle

Be aware of why your high growth

company may stop growing and what

you can do to minimise slowdowns.

• Have you re-examined your

business model within the context of

identifying reasons for slowdown?

• Have you thought about how market

maturity could be affecting your

company? Has your market reached

saturation point or is there still room

for growth?

• Are you playing it safe or looking for

breakthrough opportunities?

• Have you checked whether there are

areas of your company where time

and resources are being spent with

little return on your investment?

• Can you cut back these areas

to channel these resources into

potential growth?

chapTer 8

Increase your speed - five needle movers for implementation

As highlighted in the previous chapter, a

business strategy only has merit if you act

on it. In this chapter, we look at strategy

implementation for high growth companies.

Strategy implementation has distinct

challenges that must be overcome.

Consider that when you formulate strategy:

There are numerous models and frameworks

to guide you

You are working with a small group of people

The people you are working with are typically

the best in the company

It is an area that has been under the spotlight

for many years and has been well tested

It is perceived as exciting

In contrast, when you implement strategy:

There are very limited frameworks to use

Implementation involves changing the

behaviour and action of almost all, or

everyone, in the company

You must find many different ways to

communicate the message

It is often perceived as unexciting

It is important to remember that it is the

strategy implementation that delivers the

revenue, not the strategy formulation.

Implementation idea 1: how to successfully launch your strategy

Once the leadership team has developed

its strategy, it then must be launched to the

entire team. Below, I have outlined three

components which will assist with you a

successful launch:

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1) explain why the company must change

and what will happen if it doesn’t

By explaining why the company must change,

as well as what will happen if it doesn’t, you

will create a contrast in the minds of your

team. This is a powerful way to show staff

members the two different paths the company

can take and the implications of both.

Contrasting success and failure is a powerful

communication tool. By explaining the two

extremes, you can articulate your reason to

change.

2) explain what the strategy entails and the

key messages

This should have already been considered

when crafting the Communication Plan.

Now it gets shared with the rest of the

company. Ensure that you take time to

prioritise the messages. Communicate enough

information to encourage engagement as too

little information will leave staff members

uninterested or confused. The right amount of

information depends on the complexity of the

strategy, the makeup of the audience, what

needs to be communicated and achieved, and

your company’s structure.

3) explain how the strategy is expected to

impact the business

By clearly explaining the impact the

strategy will have on the business, you

can demonstrate to your staff that the

implementation has been thought through and

everyone is conscious of the actions required

across different business lines.

The messages also need to explain the

impact on different individuals and how

they will benefit from participating in the

implementation. With each person being

key to making the implementation work,

individual concerns must be addressed,

including possible loss of authority or even

loss of jobs.

By ensuring that you answer all three

questions, you will gain traction around the

implementation process. Fail to answer these

questions and you could make your job a lot

harder!

Move the needle

• Put a date in your diary to launch

your strategy to the team.

• Have you explained the changes and

why they are necessary?

• Have you prioritised your messages

and made sure all your staff have the

right level of information?

• Have you discussed how the strategy

will affect teams and individuals,

and how they will benefit from

participating in the implementation?

• Have you made it clear that people

can discuss their concerns in an

open and honest environment?

Implementation idea 2: how to implement change

As a leader, have you ever tried to implement

an initiative or an idea and received resistance

from your team?

Resistance to change shows itself in many

ways, from foot-dragging and inertia to

overt sabotage. The best strategy for leaders

of change is to understand the predictable

sources of resistance in each situation and

then work through them.

Below are ten common sources of resistance

to change with tried and tested tips on how to

manage them:

loss of control. Change interferes with

autonomy and can make people feel that

they’ve lost control over their area. People’s

sense of self-determination is often the first

thing to go when faced with a potential

change coming from someone else.

Tip: Leave room for those affected by change

to make choices. Then invite them into the

planning, giving them ownership.

high levels of uncertainty. If change feels like

walking off a cliff, then people will reject it.

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People will often prefer to remain unhappy

than to head toward an unknown.

Tip: Create certainty of process, with clear,

simple steps and timetables.

surprise! Decisions imposed on people

suddenly, with no time to get used to the idea

or prepare for the consequences, are resisted.

Tip: Plant seeds — that is, to sprinkle hints of

what might be coming and seek input.

everything seems different. We are creatures

of habit. Routines become automatic, but

change jolts us into consciousness, sometimes

in uncomfortable ways. Too many differences

can be distracting or confusing.

Tip: Wherever possible keep things familiar.

Remain focused on the important things;

avoid change for the sake of change.

loss of face. Those people associated with

the last initiative are likely to be defensive

about it. People responsible for the previous

direction dread the perception that they must

have been wrong.

Tip: Acknowledge those elements of the past

that worked whilst making it clear that the

world has changed.

competence concerns. Change is resisted

when it makes people feel stupid. Deep

down they are worried that their skills will be

obsolete.

Tip: Leaders should spend time reassuring,

providing information, education, training, and

support systems.

Increased workload. Change will inevitably

mean more work.

Tip: Acknowledge the hard work of change by

allowing some people to focus exclusively on

it, or rewarding and recognising participants

ripple effects. Like tossing a pebble into

a pond, change creates ripples, reaching

distant spots in ever-widening circles. The

ripples disrupt other departments, important

customers, people well outside the venture or

neighbourhood, and they start to push back,

rebelling against changes they had nothing to

do with that interfere with their own activities.

Tip: Consider all affected parties and work

with them to minimise disruption.

past history. As long as everything is in steady

state, the ghosts of the past won’t reappear.

However, the minute you need cooperation

for something different, the ghosts spring into

action.

Tip: Leaders should consider gestures to heal

the past before sailing into the future.

sometimes the threat is real. Now we get to

the crunch. Change is resisted because it can

hurt - for example, when new technologies

replace old ones, jobs can be lost.

Tip: Be honest, transparent, fast, and fair.

Although you may not always be able to make

people feel comfortable with change, you can

minimise discomfort. Identifying the sources

of resistance is the first step overcoming it.

Move the needle

• Take some time out to identify

potential for resistance for any new

initiative before it becomes an issue.

• Have you thought about where

resistance is likely to come from

within your business, i.e. specific

individuals or teams?

• Have you identified the root of this

resistance, i.e. is there past history

that needs to be acknowledged or

concerns about competence?

• Have you considered what you can

do to pre-empt this resistance and

provide reassurance?

• Do you have a plan for how to work

with all affected parties to minimize

disruption?

• Are you being transparent, honest,

fast and fair about any staffing

changes?

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Implementation idea 3: secrets to effective implementation

Recently, I have started working with

an organisation where their previous

miscommunication and inexperience led to a

project cost overrun of £100,000. We have all

experienced this type of scenario at one time

or another. But it seems that there’s a breeding

ground for these types of outcomes in many

organisations. Teams are going a hundred

miles an hour, multi-tasking and taking on

more as a result of staff reductions. People are

trying to cope with downsized organisations

in a challenging economy. The demands and

expectations are high, and resources and

clear communication are often scarce. A lot of

things can slip through the cracks in this kind

of culture.

being in b.e.D. is the breeding ground for

mistakes

The kind of environment described above can

become toxic and counterproductive. When

a workplace is in B.E.D. (Blame, Excuses and

Denial), people often react impulsively with

each misstep, and more mistakes happen.

Mistakes are like rabbits… they multiply!

As the mistakes multiply, people spend their

time fighting fires. Some people complain

about how things are a mess and ask, “When

will ‘they’ ever learn?” Others wish they had

the tools and information to do a good job the

first time.

When asked what happened and what could

have been done differently, people will say

they don’t have time – or they think don’t

have time - to step back and assess so it

won’t happen again. That’s just more Blame,

Excuses and Denial.

Taking your o.a.r. will alter your outcomes

The flip side of Blame, Excuses and Denial is

when there is an environment of Ownership,

Accountability and Responsibility.

The first thing is to identify a person who

is responsible for the overall process or

project to ensure successful completion. In

addition, each person on the team must take

full ownership for their role in the project

implementation. In a culture where people

are in B.E.D., there’s a “not my job” mentality.

There’s no ownership for the results produced.

Your employees should have clear

accountabilities, so that everyone knows who

is responsible for doing what and when.

In a healthy and successful work environment,

there is clear and on-going communication

about project goals, accountabilities,

expectations and outcomes. There are

established benchmarks for monitoring the

people and project, as well as a defined

communication process. If something is

missing or unclear, members of the team are

expected to be responsible for asking for

clarification.

It is often said that for every hour spent

in planning, you will save three hours in

implementation. When leaders and teams take

ownership, accountability and responsibility

for planning a project or implementing part

of a strategy, it will save your company time,

money and employee morale.

Move the needle

• Consider how you might help your

team move from a BED to OAR

mentality.

• Before starting a new project, have

you identified who has overall

responsibility for its successful

completion?

• Have you made sure that everyone

knows what their responsibilities are?

• Have you explained what they need

to do and when?

• Have you ensured that your whole

team is on the same page about their

joint and individual accountability?

• Have you established well-

defined benchmarks and the

communications process for the

project?

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Implementation idea 4: how to focus on growth initiatives

As a director or senior manager of a company,

part of your role must be to define and

implement new growth initiatives. However,

if you are like most of my clients (and me!),

you probably never feel like you have enough

time to devote to those important projects.

Often the activities with the most learning

opportunity get squeezed out of your daily

routine by project meetings, administrative

work, e-mail, and other day-to-day ‘stuff’.

So, how do you set time aside to focus on

growth initiatives?

I would suggest if you think more strategically

about the way you tackle the growth projects,

you can find the time to work on them and

increase your own feeling of success, as well

as your value to your company.

Here’s a simple process to achieve this:

1. Find the growth initiatives. Brainstorm

the development opportunities that either

currently fall within the scope of your role

or could if you asked for them. To come

up with possibilities, try these techniques:

Think about some of your ambitions

that you had for your current position

before you started. What did you hope to

accomplish?

Have a coffee with people in similar

positions at a different company, and ask

how they invest in learning.

Survey the company and note down

opportunities for improvement.

2. Identify the greatest value. Once you’ve

determined what types of development

you could pursue, you’ll need to decide

where to focus. One of the best ways to

do this is to look at the potential value

created by additional investment for your

company. Then, decide on one or two

that have the most potential to stretch your

skills and have a meaningful impact on

your company.

3. Clarify next steps. Part of the fun, and

challenge, of development initiatives is that

you get to define the path to reach your

end destination. However, if you only have

the occasional couple of hours or less to

make meaningful progress, you should

always have a clear sense of the next

few steps of your initiative. I recommend

noting them down in a place you can

find later or use online project tools such

as Trello. By writing out exactly which

actions you need to take to move forward

on the ultimate goal, you make it much

easier to use spare minutes effectively.

4. Decide on acceptable minimums. For both

myself and my time coaching clients, I’ve

found that it’s too easy to keep moving

important, non-urgent activities from

week-to-week, because even when you

have them on your calendar, you know

you can put them off without major short-

term repercussions.

To remedy this situation, ‘acceptable

minimums’ really works. Here’s what that

means: For the one or two key growth

initiatives, decide on the minimum amount

of time you want to spend on the related

actions each week. For example, you

could decide that you will spend at least

two hours a week moving ahead on a

customer service project and one hour

a week reading about trends in your

industry. Then, either make these blocks

of time recurring events or schedule them

in each week. (Ideally these blocks of

time fall early in the day and early in the

week so they don’t fall off the edges of

your workday.) Although an hour or two

may seem like too short a time to make

real progress, you’ll amaze yourself at how

much you can get done when you invest

your time consistently in these areas.

Plus if you have more time during certain

weeks, you can always do more.

With the right strategies, your daily work

can provide consistent opportunities to

achieve your growth initiatives.

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Move the needle

Set aside time for new growth initiatives.

Make this time ‘non -negotiable’.

• Have you brainstormed potential

initiatives or spoken to other

members of staff for their ideas?

• Have you scheduled some recurring

blocks of time in your diary – a

Tuesday morning is ideal – to read

about trends in your industry or

focus on a new customer service

initiative?

• Have you conducted a staff

survey to see where they believe

improvements can be made and

growth can be achieved?

• Have you identified which potential

growth initiatives would have the

greatest potential added value for

your company?

• Have you identified what actions

you need to take next and decided

on your ‘acceptable minimums’?

Implementation idea 5: how high growth companies innovate

One key business topic that remains topical is

that of innovation – in fact, in my experience,

most CEOs list innovation as one of their

top priorities. However, innovation remains

elusive. The vast majority of established firms

feel there is a big gap between their efforts

and their achievements.

Is that how you feel? If so, what can you do to

close this gap?

Ask this question elsewhere and, in lots

of quarters, you’ll be advised to look to

companies renowned for innovation, such

as Apple and Google, and try to learn

from them. In my opinion, that’s a flawed

approach. Apple and Google have innovation

ingrained their values. They have many years

of success to build on and they are able to

take some risks.

I think a more useful approach is start from

the principles of innovation and look at high

growth companies to understand how they

are putting those principles into practice.

So what are these principles? Here are three

that I think are really important:

Time out. It’s a well-established principle that

people need slack time to work through their

ideas. As an example, consider the software

company, Red Gate. They first experimented

with a ‘coding by the sea’ initiative, where

they got a bunch of volunteers to take over

a beach house for a few days to see if they

could make progress on a software product.

As a result of its success, this expanded to

‘down tools week’ which is a company-

wide initiative, once a year, where everyone

puts their normal routine work on hold and

commits to doing something new, something

a bit risky, or something that has been

annoying them. There is also a ‘sweat the

small stuff’ day, once a quarter, for getting on

top of the creeping bureaucracy and niggling

problems that accumulate over time.

These activities provide the necessary time

out for employees, but with a reasonable

degree of focus at the same time.

Loosely defined roles. One of the biggest

obstacles to innovation is the notion of a

job description — it is a guaranteed way

of narrowing an employee’s focus around

someone else’s view of what’s important, and

of not making full use of their latent skill-set.

Innovative companies avoid giving people

job descriptions, or they find creative ways of

encouraging them to join multiple projects.

For example, Innocent asks all its employees

to help deliver its vision, ‘to make natural,

delicious food and drink that helps people

‘live well and die old’. Over the last few

years, its big new product lines — including

a healthy Veg pot and its This Water line —

have both come from ideas conceived and

developed by mid-level employees.

Tolerance of failure. Successful innovation

requires tolerance of failure. Very often so

many management processes - the ones that

support innovation - are designed to avoid

failure and to ignore it when it does happen.

Companies can try to breed tolerance for

failure through using skills of leaders, but we

also need to find ways of institutionalising

this approach. For example, the advertising

agency Grey has a Heroic Failure award in a

similar vein.

Have you noticed a key theme that links these

three principles? None of them involve idea-

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generation schemes. Rather, they are all about

translating ideas into action. In my view, many

companies get distracted by the ‘shiny new

toy syndrome’ of new ideas, and they forget

that the hard part is taking those ideas and

putting them to work. That is where the real

progress is to be made.

Move the needle

Champion opportunities to innovate.

• Have you identified how you can

create time out each week, month

or even year, to give your staff a

creativity/innovation break, during

which they can explore new ideas?

• Have you scheduled the time so that

everyone knows it’s coming and

sticks to it?

• Have you explored how you

could give staff opportunities to

work outside of their defined roles

occasionally to focus on innovation?

• Have you considered how you might

create a culture that demonstrates a

tolerance of failure by recognising

this is a part of innovation?

chapTer 9

conclusion

The world is changing at an unprecedented

rate. As a CEO, you need to have the tools

and techniques to change and grow your

business in this new world or it simply won’t

survive.

High growth leaders know this truth and are

always making adjustments to the plan.

By focusing on needle movers/best practices,

I hope I have been able to give you practical,

relevant ways to explore potential game

changers for your company, so that you

can move it into a high Growth Phase and

implement lasting change.

As you will have seen, this ebook encourages

you to ask yourself some tough questions

about where your company is now, and

what it will take for you to achieve long-term

success. In response to these questions, it’s

possible that you feel slightly discouraged,

perhaps recognising that there are areas

where you fall a little short right now. Don’t

worry. None of us was born with a full set of

success skills. The important distinction that

separates high growth businesses from the

rest of the pack is that high growth leaders

are willing to acquire the skills necessary for

success...while others simply aren’t.

By recognising that there are gaps that need to

be filled, you have taken a powerful first step

towards acquiring the skills you need to take

your business to the next level.

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start with high Growth

Through High Growth, I work with people

like you – someone who is leading a

company with high growth potential - to help

you access the skills, training, knowledge and

business coaching you need to move your

business solidly into the Growth Phase…. and

keep it there.

On the High Growth website – www.high-

growth.co.uk – you will find a wealth of free

resources to help you achieve and sustain

high growth. These include:

More than 200 blog articles featuring tools,

strategies and insights that will give you that

all-important competitive edge

A mix of videos that give you further insights

of high growth companies, as well as free

training and lots of inspiration

Information about our latest events, ranging

from seminars to our unique millionaires’

masterminding groups

Links to our ebooks, the High Growth

Academy, and other resources and

recommendations

The high Growth promise

When you engage High Growth for coaching

or training, or you join the High Growth

Academy, you can rely on our 100%

commitment to achieving your success and

high growth. I’m a great believer that we

learn by doing, which is why all the theories

and strategies we share will be experientially

tested by you.

Working with High Growth is challenging,

and deliberately so. We will ensure that you

confront and address the limiting habits and

behaviours that may be holding you back so

that you can successfully lead your company

into the Growth Phase. In fact, we will set

you on a path that results in seismic shifts that

change everything.

It’s not all about hard work and challenging

your beliefs - we’ll have plenty of fun on your

journey to high growth too. After all, fun is

life-enhancing, stress-busting and rapport-

building, making it great for business.

To learn more about working with High

Growth, visit us online at:

www.high-growth.co.uk

Success is at your fingertips. All you have to

do is reach out and grab it.

To your success,

Stuart Ross founder high Growth