Adapting a Growth Mindset

Doesn’t every entrepreneur and/or business owner start and maintain a business in order to see it grow? The answer seems obvious. But as many top business coaches will tell you, some business leaders who attain a certain level of success are content to stay at this plateau. They feel safe within the space their business occupies in the marketplace and have little motivation to change anything.

Do you, as a leader, make an explicit choice to grow? Or do you pay lip service to your growth ambitions and let your resolve falter if profit isn’t immediate?

When you make sustainable, inclusive and profitable growth part of a conscious choice, it will shape your decision-making across every area of the business. Growth becomes the oxygen of an organization, feeding the culture, elevating ambitions and inspiring a sense of person. Growth leaders generate 80 percent more shareholder value than their peers over a 10-year period.

Leaders who choose growth and outperform their peers not only think, act and speak differently—they align around a shared mindset, strategy and capabilities. They explore and invest in opportunities, both within and outside their core business. Even in the face of unexpected challenges, they stay resolutely faithful to their growth vision. Here’s some ways you can adapt a growth mindset:

Set an aspirational mindset and culture. Create bold, actionable goals and develop a culture around those that all stakeholders can embrace.

Invest in multiple pathways for growth. Companies are 97 percent more likely to outperform when they do this. Expand the core business, innovate into new markets and purposefully pursue opportunities for breakthrough growth through new-business building or mergers and acquisitions. The obvious places to look for growth are new geographies or in adjacent industries where you can adapt your existing offerings to serve new customers.

Lay the foundation and develop the capabilities needed to move forward with your growth projects. Growth leaders communicate their commitment to growth consistently—both internally and externally.

Making the conscious choice to grow creates powerful momentum that orients the entire business toward that goal. The clarity of purpose and vision that comes from that choice is what helps leaders and their teams believe in the seemingly impossible and make it happen.