What is growth? Well, growth is easy to celebrate, and you’ll see bigger numbers, more clients, more visibility, and of course, you’ll see plenty of progress. Growth feels good and it looks impressive, especially from the outside, but the fact is that growth on its own doesn’t always mean a business is healthy, and actually, growth can hide a few problems that you’ll only come across later.
Sustainable success, on the other hand, might not be quite so noticeable because it’s not so big and bold, but it will get you further in the end, and it’ll last longer when you get there. With that in mind, keep reading to find out more about the difference between growth and sustainable success.
Image Source: Unsplash – Isaac Smith
Growth Often Focuses On Speed
When businesses go after growth, speed can very often become the priority, so you’ll try to launch a lot faster, you’ll take on far too much work, you’ll say yes to everything just to get ahead… but although you might be moving more quickly than a lot of your competitors, it might not actually be the right choice for you, and taking a bit more time to think about things is usually the better option. Plus, working fast like that might be fine for short bursts, but it’s hard to maintain.
The problem is that speed tends to move the structure of how you do things to one side, and processes get very messy as a result. That means you might not communicate as clearly as you’d like, and it means your teams can feel like they’re stretched too thin. Yes, you might be growing, but it’ll get harder and harder to do each month.
Sustainable Success Focuses On Stability
Sustainable success doesn’t think about how fast you can go, but instead it’s all about how you can support whatever it is you’re doing for the future. In other words, it’s about putting down the strongest foundations you can to make sure you’ve actually got something to build on.
And what are strong foundations? A lot of the time, they’ll be things like clear roles, realistic workloads, and good systems that keep things organised, which could mean using tools like ABA management software, for example. Remember, stability isn’t going to slow things down too much, just enough to make sure you’re safe to keep going.
Growth Can Hide Weak Spots
One of the biggest reasons why rapid growth isn’t always a good idea is that it can hide the problems and weak spots in your business. That’s because when things are busy, problems won’t necessarily be noticed, and even if they are, they might not feel urgent because there’s so much going on that it’s hard to prioritise things – everything’s urgent. The biggest issue here is that small problems just keep getting postponed until they turn into big ones that can’t be ignored anymore.
Sustainable businesses tend to deal with these weak spots early, and they’ll take the time to see what’s working, what isn’t, and what needs changing. That’s going to feel slower when you’re doing it, but it’s also going to prevent much bigger disruption down the line.
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