by mlindberg | Jan 17, 2015 | Uncategorized
Growth for the sake of growth is not good. You need to have a purpose. You must be able to answer: “Why?” And of course an answer to “What?” is equally important. In spite of this I have come across many CEOs who have boldly stated to both shareholders and employees that the company needs a growth strategy. A growth strategy? I was of the opinion that all strategies included an element of growth so please answer ”Why?” and ”What?” before you make too bold statements. Don’t get me wrong. In my company we have a ”growth strategy” as well (we work hard to triple our turnover in five years and quadruple our profits in the same period). But this didn’t start out as a ”growth strategy”. As a matter of fact we hadn’t grown for quite a few years and the financial crisis wasn’t the only reason. No, the real reason was that I didn’t see a need for growth so I had no answer to “Why?”. Of course there are some generic reasons to grow: You will be more profitable by spreading your overheads You will minimize your risk by having more customers You will attract larger (and more profitable) customers You will be able to hire better and more experienced people You will have greater purchasing power with your suppliers But are these reasons sufficient? I don’t think so. I fully understand that they – if properly implemented – will lead to increased profits and to maximize their profits is the ultimate goal for most companies. But to me increased profits (or shareholder...
by mlindberg | Jan 8, 2015 | Uncategorized
A new year has just begun, which means it is time for new year resolutions. Here’s some statistics from University of Scranton on the New Year’s resolutions made by Americans: 45% of Americans make resolutions 75% of those make it past the first week 71% make it past two weeks 64% make it past one month 46% make it past six months 18% fully achieve their goals Impressive? Or maybe not? It’s very interesting to notice that the largest number of dropouts occur in the very first week. I wonder if they really meant it when they made their new year resolution? How do these numbers compare to strategy and business plans? I don’t have trustworthy statistics on this, but I am not sure that 18% can claim that they fully achieved their goals last year. There could be many reasons for that, but read along in my next blog post and learn how to make SMART goals – goals that have a much higher probability of being achieved over traditional types of goals. P.S. The survey from University of Scranton showed that persons in their twenties were more than twice as likely to achieve their resolution compared to people over 50. I’m 52 so maybe I should forget about losing weight, getting organized and spending less/saving more, which are the top 3 resolutions. On the other hand: I’ll give it a shot, at least for a...
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