CEOs of midsized firms must learn to stop tinkering with their strategy. Most midsized firms have core businesses begging to scale, and tinkering with a successful strategy kills growth.
Robert Sher was quoted in the Inc. Magazine’s September print issue in this article about innovation— asserting that too much innovation can actually hurt your business. The article reviews statistics that prove the point, and distinguishes between different types of innovation.
It underscores the importance of picking the best ideas—and developing them, as well as focusing on scaling high-growth core business opportunities to cash in on proven innovations, and to reduce focus on new ideas during those intense high-growth times. Read the story on-line here.
This business grew to $100 million revenues in 12 years without a business plan, without a budget, and without many meetings. Hard to believe, but true. Yet now they are changing their approach because they can feel themselves losing control.
Growing companies can be victims of their own success. When they get the growth they so desperately seek, they may just as quickly outgrow their leadership infrastructure, rendering the business chaotic and inefficient.
I was walking through Atlanta airport returning from a client session when a CFO spotted me and told me about how he’d spurred growth in his firm.
Some companies let time slip away from them. The result is one missed deadline after another. CEOs must come down hard and enforce deadlines.
I walk by Zynga’s cool building in San Francisco often on my way to a client I have in SOMA. So it was sad to hear of the layoff of over 500 employees. Such a fast acceleration to a billion plus in revenues, and now the growth curve has reversed. What are the lessons to be learned for other mid-sized company CEOs?
Most mid-sized business cannot be an amazing growth story. While the media loves crazy-fast growing companies, trying to make a company grow faster than it should often destroys value.
CEOs excited about growth often open the purse strings too widely and wind up in financial crisis. Yet it is true that you have to spend money to make money. So what’s the right balance?
Predicting market demand can seem like a dark art. Many companies have collapsed because they spent money on plan, but the market failed to respond in time. Read about simple steps the members of the c-suite can take to pursue both primary and secondary research that will illuminate market forces.
Robert Sher is founding principal of CEO to CEO, a consulting firm of former chief executives that improves the leadership infrastructure of midsized companies seeking to accelerate their performance. He was chief executive of Bentley Publishing Group from 1984 to 2006 and steered the firm to become a leading player in its industry (decorative art publishing).