Growth is the Dynamic Confluence of Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Values

Abstract

The author has examined common growth beliefs and the U.S. Growth Model and finds no support for them in any area of business research. He offers instead the Organic Growth Index, the result of ten years of research by the Batten Institute at the Darden School. Six keys to organic growth are presented and above-average growth companies that remained successful are linked to an internal Growth System called Smart Growth. Excerpt UVA-S-0196 Rev. Jan. 2, 2013 Growth Is The Dynamic Confluence of Strategy, Entrepreneurship, AND Values The research on high-performance companies (defined as consistent above-average growth), both public and private, demonstrates that consistent value creation requires a focused strategy that is implemented through a mixture of entrepreneurial activities and exploiting activities enabled by an internal system characterized by values-based (ethical) leadership, culture, and policies. Growth research has demonstrated that growth is much more than a strategy. Growth happens when the right kind of leadership, internal environment, and processes come together to create a small-company-entrepreneurial soul in a large-company body. Growth requires experimental processes, an entrepreneurial mindset, iterative entrepreneurial learning, leadership that accepts entrepreneurial failures, and internal processes that mitigate the natural proclivities of human beings and organizations that inhibit growth. Growth is not a linear or reductionist process. It is a human process that is modeled better by biology and complexity theory than economics or physics. Growth is a change process that requires experimentation, learning, and taking measured risks that can result in mistakes and failures—that contravenes the purpose of an organization, which is to produce standardization, predictability, reliability, and consistency. . . .