Pacing for Growth

Relentless speed and unconstrained activity are not necessary for growth-you need only look to companies like Enron, Pets.com, and Groupon to see that "fast" does not always mean "good." Leading growth consultant Alison Eyring provides a different view on growth, preaching restraint, not rushing in. "It's a marathon, not a sprint." We hear this truism all the time, but in business there's constant pressure to go all out and never let up. Leaders are driven to set stretch targets, relentlessly reduce costs, launch new initiatives, expand into new markets, hire more people, develop more capabilities, and execute flawlessly. It all sounds great-until the company overextends itself and collapses like a badly trained racehorse in the home stretch. So what is the right pace for steady, sustainable growth? How do you know when to push yourself and when to back off? Growth consultant Alison Eyring (who also happens to be a distance runner) says the answer is what she calls Intelligent Restraint. Eyring shows precisely how you can evaluate your company's current capacity for growth so you can restrain yourself from exceeding it, no matter how tempting the supposed opportunities seem. Then she offers a set of practices for gradually building that capacity so you can grow steadily but sensibly in a way that strengthens your company instead of stretching it to the breaking point.