You may know the old saying that “everyone votes for change but nobody want to do it”. Well, let me put that into the context of that other desire of today…growth. Every business wants, and yes needs, growth but nobody knows how to do it may be case here.

Let me correct that! People may think they know how to do it and have sort of a plan but they are maybe reluctant to put it into operation because they perceive “the time is not right”, or they want to tweak the plan, or inwardly they are frightened it won’t work or is too risky or….or….or and so on.

Prevarication today is impacting productivity, profit, perception, purpose, people and every other “p” you can add to that list. Too many businesses are scared to take the ride to growth and will usually come along for the ride rather than taking action.

Now let’s be fair to them. The constantly challenging economic conditions and total uncertainty haven’t actually favoured the growth agenda have they – unless perhaps you are in the defence industry! But that uncertainty is now the “new normal.” So you have to live with it, and beat it to achieve growth.

How? Preparation is key. For this post let me give you three areas of preparation.

First, too many of today’s leaders haven’t truly experienced leading in tough times. They also may be struggling with the turn of what is needed to be a leader today. Those dominant technical skills of yesteryear have had to give way to the need for strengthening emotional intelligence (EQ) and people skills. And that is important whether you are a leader of thousands, hundreds or one. Your people set the tone of your business. We talk a lot about that on our BVTV 2-Leadership & Performance Channel and it will be featured in our new BVTV Leadership Today Show. Improving your emotional skills should be uppermost in your mind.

Secondly, growth is too often seen as linear. You know “sell more of this or that to more of them” type of thinking. But the world has changed. We agreed that earlier didn’t we? I see growth as needing a bit of 3 -dimensional chess play. In this case, and there are many scenarios, the 3 levels are Changing Customer Needs, Implementing Innovation and Realistic Market Access. Now obviously there are other scenarios including geo-political, strategy, purpose and so on.

But what I am trying to point out here is that your business success is fundamentally about your customer. I am dismayed these days how many businesses have lost sight of their customer. And that usually means their customer has quickly lost sight of them too! Remember a happy customer will tell others making your growth path easier. Follow us at BVTV, as we talk about improving Customer Experience. The old tactic of taking a walk through your business in your customer’s shoes may, yes, be old but is totally relevant today.

My third area of growth preparation lies in knowledge. Yes, this should be a personal trait where you know what is going on in the world. But that knowledge needs to extend further into the knowledge of competitors, knowledge of markets, knowledge of customers, knowledge of technology, knowledge of your sector or industry. You may say “hold on that is too much for me to do”. Then tune it if you a small business or delegate it if you have a team. Think of the “pride of input” a team member will have by being given an area of knowledge-seeking and reporting back to the rest of the team. That’s true involvement!

I’m going to close now on this post to give you time to reflect on it and if you are going to take action and join us for an exciting growth journey. Follow my blogs, channels and shows for growth support.