Growth is What We Don’t See!

Thank you, everyone, for wishing me on the occasion that I step up on my first leadership role. I am overwhelmed by the wishes and support, and I thank all of you for helping me achieve this career progression.

I must admit that the role is new to me, and there is a lot to learn. I intend to share my learnings as I embark on this new journey. I will continue to write alongside other topics, including but not limited to, Wealth, Investing, Business, and Leadership.

Disclaimer: The opinion expressed here are Author's own and does not reflect on any organization.

Now that I have been offered a leadership position, as usual, my thoughts rushed to improve the revenue, the profits & initiate new business ideas. I scribbled almost for an hour, thinking about what problems to solve. I wrote down a lot of technical solutions that can be offered in an attempt to fix existing maritime challenges.

Both my foresight and hindsight were brooded with revenues, numbers, and profits. I thought everything was about numbers, and a few leaders from other organizations I met discussed numbers.

Some?– spoke about how they grew a company from $10M to $100M.

A few whom I looked up to (in other organizations)?– talked about how they helped their current organization by closing several million dollars worth of deals.

Most of them spoke only about the numbers and their associated achievements.

With all those around me speaking and boasting about their achievements in numbers, I acquired a similar thinking and the idea of talking about numbers. I was under the fallacy that?Growth was all about numbers, profits, and ROI.

What I realized is that everyone measures Growth only in terms of numbers.

Let's take some examples:

1. How many tons of products are sold?
2. ?What's our position in the market? What's our market share?
3. ?By what % did we improve our net profits?
4. ?What's our year-over-year sales growth?
5. ?How many people have downloaded our app?
6. ?How many people have watched our YouTube video?
7. ?How much does that guy earn?

And so on!

Like icing on the cake, the media reports & propagates these numbers only.

I had been to one of my friend's house, and his kid asked me how to get a million views on Instagram. Wow!

I am not against anyone aspiring for such growth, but the point I am trying to make here is that even a kid's brain is ingrained with Growth that is associated with only numbers.

My mentor/boss tapped on my head to open my eyes!

What I unlearned and relearned about Growth:

Growth is what you do not see!

Growth, as we see in numbers, is akin to the tip of the iceberg (that people see).

What people cannot see (the submerged part of the iceberg) is akin to another measure we will see in this blog.

Let's visualize some charts.

People often measure Growth in terms of the following:

ROI/ Profits/ Revenue is represented in Y-Axis from lower to Higher.

On the X-Axis, the one that people miss out on measuring when they refer to Growth are

"Process & Systems."

We refer to the "Growth" on X-Axis as how good a company's Processes and systems are – measuring it from Bad on the left to Good on the right.

When we think of "Growth," we automatically relate it to ROI / Profits and Revenue but not the Growth in processes and systems.

Now, let's combine these measures to form a chart to see how Growth varies under different circumstances.

So to summarize:

When we say "Growth ",

1. What people often?see?is – Profits/Revenue etc.
2. ?What people?do not see?are – Processes and Systems etc.

Leaders Focusing Only on High Sales or Profit Growth:

Focusing only on high sales or profit growth is short-lived. Sustaining such high growth rates is often only possible if Growth or improvements in processes and systems back them.

As shown in the chart above, if the leaders focus only on revenue and profit growth without improvements in processes and systems, such developments shall be short-lived. Eventually, the company stagnates and, in worst cases, may close its doors due to leverage or debts to sustain such growth rates (many start-ups are classic examples).

Leaders Focusing on Improvement in Process & Systems:

The chart below shows the effect of a leader focusing on incremental process and systems improvements that will eventually lead to a slight increase in revenue or profits. Once the emphasis is on improving the processes & systems, the trajectory is automatically set for exponential Growth.

Imagine, You are the high-powered locomotive (leader) trying to pull coaches loaded with goods (people bubbling with talents).

Do you think the locomotive can haul the coaches without a rail track?

The locomotive can hardly move the coaches forward without a rail track. Likewise, if there are no improvements in processes and systems, whatsoever may be the kind of leader you are; you will never be able to haul all the bubbling talents together and move forward. So is the importance of processes and systems.

One of the most significant revelations & lessons I learned is to focus on the process and system improvements first than solely on sales and profit growth. Process and system improvements (The Process) are more important than the high revenue and profit growth (The Outcome).

The Process> The Outcome

Thus, as a leader, the improvements in processes and systems you achieve must create a multiplier effect with which you can engineer the desired results!

The same can be applied in life regarding monetary wealth and health.?Focusing only on financial wealth will be short-lived, whereas focusing on health and skills will help you compound wealth over many years. I have to admit that I learned this lesson the hard way.

Let's put all the pieces together; four quadrants are shown in the chart.

While it is enticing for many leaders to choose the path along the Y-Axis (show high revenue and profit growth), such Growth may only sustain if the process improvements grow in tandem.

The more realistic and sustainable path shall focus on process improvements (X-axis / move from bad to better Process), laying a solid foundation to sustain the high growth rates.

Have you heard the story of a Chinese bamboo that did not grow for many years and then quickly grew to great heights within a short period?

It's simply because the roots grow first and becomes thick, firm and large enough to withstand the weight of the bamboo as it shoots high.

Likewise, before an organization aims for exponential Growth, the processes and systems must be improved adequately to withstand the exponential Growth.

If you have read until here, thank you for reading the blog; I hope it was helpful.?

Please share your thoughts or experience; I look forward to learning new things.

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Disclaimer - The views expressed in this article are of the Author and do not represent the firm's views.