Growth: The Ultimate Question

What percentage of your company’s full growth potential is presently being exploited? That simple yet powerful question is a great place to start a senior management conversation. Indeed, it is such a powerful question that, of all the possible openings to this book, we wanted to begin with it. So here it is again:

Q: What percentage of your company’s full growth potential is presently being exploited? Circle the point on the scale below.

0%      10%      20%      30%       40%       50%      60%     70%       80%      90%      100%
(% of full growth potential exploited)

Unless you marked 100% on the scale, this book was written for you. Across the thousands of managers that we have benchmarked the average response to the ‘growth potential’ question is 55%. That is a very positive and encouraging figure – it means that most organizations have lots of potential for growth. But it leads us to the next question:  With so much potential to accelerate growth what is stopping you?