The Fear of Business Growth

Are you deliberately keeping your business small because you fear business growth?

One of the most common statements I hear from business owners is that they don't want the headaches that come with having a larger business.  The reality is, that these business owners usually have enough headaches coping with the business they currently run and can only envisage it getting more chaotic if it grew.  They know they have a problem, but have chosen the wrong answer.

The antidote for a business that causes the owner headaches, ie normally dependency and underperformance, is not to keep the business small, but to set up the business so that it performs as it should.  Statistics show that the great majority of businesses are under performing.  Recent surveys indicate that owners of small to medium businesses worldwide work on average, more than 50 hours per week.  95% of all businesses have less than 20 employees and more than 80% have less than 5 employees.  To me, these numbers indicate that something is wrong with the current state of entrepreneur ship and business performance management. 

There is a simple business growth model developed in 1972 by Harvard professor Larry Greiner which accurately describes the series of growth stages which all businesses have to negotiate as they grow to any size.  He describes how when a business grows to a certain point it experiences a specific crisis that is only successfully negotiated by the business changing structure and management processes.  These stages are very predictable.  However, it appears that most business owners know nothing about these growth stages and the crises they will encounter on their growth path.  This is why 80% of businesses never grow beyond 5 employees while their owners work more than 50 hours per week putting up with headaches that don't need to continue if they took the relatively simple steps to change to the appropriate structure and management processes to take their business beyond the crisis point.

What business owners discover when they successfully negotiate these growth crisis points is that the turbulence and malfunction that occurs just before the crisis point disappears beyond it, just the way a jet aircraft suffers drag and resistance on the runway as it takes off, only to enter smooth flight as it gains altitude and how it suffers buffeting and resistance as it approaches the sound barrier only to enter smooth flight again once that barrier is broken.

Business growth is nothing to fear.  It just has to be approached in the right way.  Keeping a business small will not save you headaches if it is in crisis mode.  But growing your business with the right changes in structure and methods will eliminate your headaches much more effectively and give you a much more rewarding and smoother ride.