Creating a culture of growth in any business large or small is not easy. However, in order to grow and develop all businesses can with the right leadership to develop a strategy to culture growth and innovation in any circumstances.
There are several areas all businesses must consider when thinking about creating a growth culture, even if you are a one-man/ one-woman band.
- What does the business do currently with regard to growth? What is the structure to allow growth? Ideally, what would your business in a growth phase look like?
- What are the barriers your business currently faces when looking to grow?
- What is your current Growth and Innovation process?
- The biggest barrier most businesses face when looking to grow is “lack of time’, how will you overcome this as a business?
- What practices will you implement the business to facilitate growth within the team?
- Do you have the right team in place to facilitate growth?
- Can you identify someone either internally or externally who can champion growth within your business other than yourself?
- Does growth mean developing something new or does it mean improving on something already in existence?
- What should your optimum employee look like?
- How are you going to recruit these staff – how are you going to pay them?
What is interesting from most studies when assessing growth, regardless of industry or background, most small businesses offer the same barriers or potential barriers to growth.
At Enterprise Made Simple in 2017, we ran a poll for 3000 businesses across the North East of England and the list of barriers in rank to prevent growth are listed here in order.
- Lack of time
- Money pressures
- Poor communication/ marketing messages
- Not enough staff
- Fear
- Complacency
- Averse to Risk
- Short term focus.
Do you identify with any of the areas, in terms of development and in terms of lack of structure?
There are several areas of concentration that any business owner must take the first steps to develop themselves and their growth aspirations. Ask yourself the following questions as they are vital when deciding that growth is a developed culture in your business.
Are you creative?
Do you like looking for solutions?
Do you love to explore new ideas?
Do you have a broad set of interests?
Are you a problem solver?
Are you self-motivated?
Do you have a very strong work ethic?
Are you resourceful?
Most importantly be honest. No company regardless of size or background is perfect. I have worked with over six thousand companies over the last ten years and I can tell you not one is satisfied that they have a perfectly fostered growth culture.
The important lesson is to realise that your culture and your growth strategies are growing and developing and that as a business owner you need to take the time out of your business to work on your business, this will help foster the growth culture within your business immeasurably.
