"The Undisciplined Pursuit of More (growth)" is a killer...

Co-Author of "Built to Last" and Author of "Good To Great", Jim Collins makes a very good point about the addiction to growth and more that many American companies have. Addiction by its nature is void of discipline.

We all want our organizations to grow. However, there is healthy, disciplined, sustained growth and unhealthy undisciplined growth that will lead to decline. One is like an athlete who trains hard, eats a healthy diet to achieve success and the other is like an athlete who trains hard, eats a healthy diet AND uses steroids to achieve success. I think its pretty obvious where those two models of growth lead.

Jim Collins wrote in "How The Mighty Fall":
"To neglect your core business while you leap after exciting new adventures is undisciplined. To use the organization primarily as a vehicle to increase your own personal success-more wealth, more fame, more power-at the expense of its long-term success is undisciplined. To compromise your values or lose sight of your core purpose in pursuit of growth and expansion is undisciplined."

Is your organization's growth healthy or undisciplined?

If you answered the question with the latter, although you are growing, you may be on the decline.

Time to take a look within my own organization.

I recommend reading "How The Mighty Fall". Great book and provides insight into great organizations that have fallen from grace to irrelevant

Proverbs 25:28 (NKJV)
²⁸ Whoever has no rule over his own spirit
Is like a city broken down, without walls.

Good evening!

Lance Cashion