Three questions to rethink your approach to business growth
Your company grows only when you:
1. identify the sources of growth and
2. align the entire organization around them.
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The Trials and Tribulations of a Young CEO
Recently, I was cleaning up my hard drive and stumbled upon an MS Word file I created in 2006. I was a CEO at the time. I made the file to figure out what wasn’t working.
The file starts with a list of my 2006 problems:
1. I lack focus. I jump on everything—except strategic growth.
2. Our team members don’t think alike, and that hinders business growth.
3. We don’t know why customers choose us – or why they don’t.
4. Growth comes and goes, and no one understands why.
Sounds familiar? Many of my today’s clients struggle with the same issues.
In 2006, we tried many growth strategies—from geographical expansion to cost leadership. Every time I launched a new project, I was sure the upside would be huge and the downside minimal. And yet, somehow, it always turned out the other way around.
A toxic mix of oversized ambitions and undersized skills can sink even the most resilient business.
Our company had become encrusted with half-dead, money-losing projects — like barnacles on the bottom of a ship. At first, they just slowed us down. But in 2008, they dragged us straight to the bottom—like a giant octopus.
If failed projects keep piling up while the business doesn’t grow, its leader is a foreman, not an architect.
Foreman, not an Architect
Just because you’re at the wheel doesn’t mean you’re the captain.
In business, a foreman is someone who gives the orders. They might have a few good ideas, but their approach isn’t systematic.
An architect is someone who reshapes the DNA of the company to make growth inevitable. They identify the sources of growth and align the entire organization around them.
In 2008, I was a foreman. I still believe that some of my 2006 ideas were great. But my company wasn’t built to bring them to life—like a pine tree can’t grow apples. I had to change the very DNA of the business, but I didn’t know how.
I’ve spent 17 years learning how to do it. On September 16, my online course Architects of Business Growth kicks off. We’ll explore every growth mechanism in business—and learn how to turn them into a successful strategy. This course is hands-on and packed with insights you can start using right away. I’ll be sending you a special message with all the details soon.
But let me share a few ideas with you right now.
Growth DNA
Bonsai trees are perfect miniature replicas of full-sized trees. You can grow one from almost any tree species—just plant it in a tight container and never let it grow freely.
Whether a tree grows big or stays small depends on two things: its DNA and its constraints. Same with a business. Back in 2006, I understood the constraints — and I tried to remove them. But I didn’t understand the DNA part. Foremen rarely do.
Trees have growth hardwired into their DNA. But what drives business growth? It took me years to realize that three things do:
1. The ability to identify unmet customer needs
2. The ability to create unique value that meets those needs
3. The skill to wrap all key decisions around customer value
Since 2016, I’ve been helping companies get unstuck and craft their strategies. Along the way, I’ve developed an effective method for strengthening their growth DNA.
You only need to answer three questions.
Three questions
1. What customer needs do you focus on?
Successful companies always know the answer to this question. For example:
- Nescafé focuses on the need to make coffee in a minute—without a coffee maker.
- UPS and DHL focus on the need for fast and effortless parcel delivery.
Humane’s AI Pin was, by contrast, a product in search of a need. The company didn’t even launch its ‘screenless smartphone’, projecting a virtual display onto the user’s palm.
You should have a short – no more than two or three items – list of customer needs you focus on.
Don’t make customers love your products. Make products they love.
2. What customer value do you create to meet these needs?
For instance:
· BMW sells driving pleasure
· CAT delivers rugged reliability
· Walmart promises unbeatable low prices.
Starbucks, by contrast, has lost its unique positioning—being a ‘third place.’ Mobile app orders turned it into a “mosh pit.” Brian Niccol, the new CEO, is trying to turn things around.
3. How do we make key decisions?
You need a different approach to decision-making. Every key decision should increase customer value.
Decisions related to customer value creation should have the highest priority. If a decision doesn’t increase customer value, should you be making it at all?
Amazon is a great example. Most books about the company agree on one thing — Jeff Bezos always insisted that customer value had to come first in all major decisions. When Amazon had to choose between short-term profits and free shipping, it chose free shipping. It created more customer value—even though it hurt margins initially.
🔒 Want to go deeper? In the final part of this post — available to paying subscribers to my newsletter — I share the exact framework, a list of 28 points, I use with my clients to answer these questions.
Upgrade to a paid subscription, and you’ll also learn how this approach helped me overcome the same challenges I faced back in 2006.
Svyatoslav Biryulin
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I write about cognitive biases in business strategy, mental models for strategic decision making, and paradoxes in business strategy. Subscribe to get new articles delivered straight to your inbox. Prefer RSS? Subscribe here → https://sbiryulin.com/feed
If you want to dive deeper into strategic thinking — and you’re not afraid to face its paradoxes and provocations — read my book Red and Yellow Strategies: Flip Your Strategic Thinking and Overcome Short-termism.
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