None of us has control over loadshedding, service delivery and what happens in Ukraine, the US or China, but you can control your own mindset. Shifting gears to focus on what you do have control over and implementing these four strategies will see you starting the New Year strong.

Passive or active growth?

Growth needs more than words and wishes.

In Profit from the Core: A return to growth in turbulent times, written just after the 2007/8 financial meltdown, Chris Zook shares findings from his research.

Only 88% of 10 000 surveyed companies across South Africa, the UK, the USA and Europe confirmed that they wanted to grow their businesses. Digging deeper into a segment of these companies, he found that:

• 14.7% of the business owners ‘talk about growth’ for an hour a month;
• 95.2% of their employees were unaware of their growth intention; and
• 68.4% had misaligned business functions, which created chaos and retarded growth efforts.

This indicates that these companies’ leaders have a passive growth mindset – one that requires certainty before they take the steps necessary to grow.

An active growth mindset, on the other hand, looks to invest in growth despite uncertainty. It recognizes that different business practices are needed to manage the risk of growth investments. It seeks to learn, understand, test and develop methods to secure that growth.

This is hard to get right. The greatest challenge is to overcome our habits and ‘images of the past’, as the psychoanalyst Carl Jung put it.

Walking the talk is imperative, and that also requires a winning mindset. Winning market share and being overtly competitive often draws unwanted attention. The Australians call it ‘tall poppy syndrome’; those who stand out will be chopped down.

A winning mindset

And yet business growth is about conflict. To grow in an environment like sub-Saharan Africa, where the World Bank is expecting per-capita income to grow by only 1.2%, you will have to outcompete your competitors – and this requires a winning mindset.

What must you do to win the race against equally skilled and capable athletes? What extra mile do you need to go to, to take the lead before the finish line?

It will test your confidence and self-esteem and, simultaneously, make you the best you can be – only to become 1% better tomorrow. Commitment, resolve and fortitude will be what set you apart.

Your product: Solving customer problems

Most established business owners are technically strong at creating and improving their products and services. The challenge in an overcrowded and increasingly commoditised marketplace is to lead the incremental value enhancements you make across your products or services.

In most companies, these enhancements are driven by you or your team. Whether you’re a furniture manufacturer, crane provider or lawyer, your mindset determines the micro-enhancements that could improve the performance of the products.

In a growth economy, your year-on-year organic growth won’t be stalled or retarded if an investment in time, money, passion and resources doesn’t lead to growth.

“Growth needs more than words than wishes.”

In a no-growth economy, the picture is very different. A product’s purpose is to solve a customer’s problem. When an economy changes, customers develop new problems – and your response is what could give you the edge. These insights, and responsive product enhancements based on changing customer behaviour, will result in customer-led innovation – essential to increased productivity and investment returns.

Your sales system: Getting products to market

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: ‘Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.’

That was 1882 and he was right then. Now our commoditised, over-serviced market demands a revision and I propose this: ‘Everyone has a great mousetrap, and you need to beat a path to your customer’s door.’

Getting that job done in an organised, reliable and predictable manner is the job of your commercial system. The development of a commercial system often emerges from the early behaviour of the founder/s. What they do (and did) to get their first products to market creates the practices that govern the company’s commerce.

As the business grows, the founder/s then delegate these practices in the hope that they can extract themselves from daily operational activities. It seldom works. Growth is impossible if the owner remains square and centre in the delivery of the product.

What’s essential for growth?

A commercial system in a business consists of about 207 linked daily, weekly and monthly operational activities across marketing, sales, fulfilment, administration and finance. It remains the most complex challenge faced by growing companies.

Basing its design on creating a customer experience, rather than the delivery of your product, is vital. It must be simplified, delegated and managed to control risk, productivity and performance. The ongoing development of your commercial system to de-risk the complexity related to growth is the job of a winning-mindset owner.

Essential for growth is your changing leadership practice. Building and delegating a customer-centred commercial system releases your time from operational activities, allowing you to take the lead.

Your focus: Six leadership shifts

To lead a business that delivers annual revenues of R5 million versus R15 million versus R50 million versus R150 million, what you do and how you do it as the business owner has to change.

During the life of the business you will have to make six leadership shifts. Awareness of each of these and how these changes in leading growth move the company from one level to the next is essential to transcend growth ceilings. It is an enormous personal challenge. We cannot see what we cannot see, and habits blind us to this insight.

I often see business owners driving their companies like they drive their cars. Your morning route to work has you behind the wheel of your vehicle but not necessarily actively present, alert or engaged with the route, other vehicles or your immediate surroundings. It’s called unconscious competence.

It also has many business owners locked into a mindset and behaviour pattern that prevents their personal and company growth from transitioning to the next level.

You really are in control

In the next few years, improving productivity and producing more with less will be vital if your business is to survive and unlock growth despite the surrounding business environment.

This is good news. We have a mature economy where legacy relationships seem set, and habits of practice across industries’ value chains appear to be locked. Increasing inflation and interest rates will create cracks that open doors, by changing the circumstances and buying trends of customers and clients.

5.2% - The percentage of SA adults who own a business that has been going for 42 months– 2021/22 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor: South Africa

The problems they seek to solve will evolve fundamentally differently in this economy, from how they came about in the economy a few years back. Relationships are as strong as their convenience and comfort.

Being the first to respond to these changing conditions, and entering new relationships by continually innovating with your products, services and customer experiences, is where you will find growth.

Wisdom is the combination of insight and foresight. Wisdom in action will enable you to embrace the new economic environment, as an opportunity to build your business into your greatest wealth-generating asset. It will serve you, your team, the communities you touch and South Africa at large.

After all, it is 100% in your control.