Principle 2: The Business You Built Cannot Become the Business You Envision Without Changing How It’s Led and Organized
Last week I laid out the first principle behind how I think about business growth:
At some point, a successful business reaches a limit. Sometimes that limit is the market. More often, it is the owner.
That brings us to Principle 2.
Principle 2: The business you built cannot become the business you envision without changing how it’s led and organized.
At some point, you have to decide which limit you are willing to accept.
You can decide that the business you’ve built is enough.
Maybe it provides a good income. You like the size of the team. You like being close to the work and your customers. You don’t want more complexity, more employees, or more risk.
There is nothing wrong with that choice. You’ve decided where you want the limit to be.
But there is another choice.
You can decide that you don’t want to be the limit. You want to find out what the market will allow this business to become.
That is a very different decision.
Because once you make it, you can’t assume the business will keep working the same way.
Decisions will have to move. Responsibilities will have to change. People will need more authority. Your own role will have to change too.
That’s the price.
If you want to see what the market will allow your business to become, you have to be willing to build the organization capable of getting there.
That’s where "What’s Next?" begins.
Principle 3: Growth introduces complexity that cannot be solved by effort alone.
We’ll get into that next week.
