The Real-Life MBA: The no-nonsense guide to winning the game, building a team and growing your career. Suzy Welch
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Now, when you’re not growing very fast, the last thing you want to do is go on a hiring spree. You like your team, even if it’s just four of you. They’re experienced; they’ve been with you shoulder-to-shoulder, trying out new initiatives. We empathize. But here’s reality: you and your team don’t know what you don’t know.
At AssuraMed, Michael Petras was surrounded by people who had “grown up” at the company. They knew the industry down to their toes. Michael didn’t want to let them go, because like you, he knew their value, but for the sake of fresh perspectives, he moved some of them into different roles and brought in six new leaders from companies outside the medical industry, including Hewlett-Packard and Grainger. And in perhaps the most startling move, he brought in a new marketing manager from Lean Cuisine, a frozen food division at Nestlé. Her name was Kristin Gibbs, and she took one look around AssuraMed and, like Michael, saw a veritable gold mine of growth possibilities. The company had long segmented customers by product, for instance. Kristin wondered what could be learned—and improved—if they were segmented by “disease state”—urological, insulin-dependent diabetic, and so on. Similarly, she noticed the company had not aligned its marketing programs with those of its manufacturers. What would happen if it did? Nor had the company ever spent much time promoting itself to nurses. What if it started showing up at their conventions, sponsoring luncheons, and telling the AssuraMed story?
The impact of Kristin’s various marketing initiatives was immediate and profound. Not because she was a new manager who introduced new managerial techniques, but because she was a new manager who saw the organization with new eyes—for what it was and what it could become.
If you want growth, no matter the size of your company or where you sit in it, be it leading a team or a department, don’t delay in bringing in a pair (or two) of your own fresh eyes.
Concentrate, Don’t Dilute
Most businesses have only so much money to spend on growth initiatives each year. And most of the time, whether the budget is $100,000 or $10 million, it’s not enough; again, that’s just one of those facts-of-life things.
But too often, the problem with growth isn’t the number of dollars available, it’s how managers allocate them.
They sprinkle. A little money on this initiative, a little on that, a bit more over here, some over there, until each initiative gets a dusting of funds, and everyone is unhappy. At least they’re equally unhappy, right? Or so goes the thinking of weak leaders practicing the age-old, favorite corporate pastime of CYA (covering your ass).
Such an approach, common though it may be, is a losing game. If you want growth, don’t hedge your bets. Go big to get big. That’s our second lever.
Michael Petras had lots of ways to allocate his resources toward growth at AssuraMed; indeed, within his first year, his top team (those fresh eyes again!) brought him more than a dozen investment options. They all had some merit—that was exciting. And so Michael and his team debated them for days. If you’d been there, the intensity at times would’ve reminded you of a good old-fashioned food fight. Ultimately, for maximum payback, they decided to fund only two. One was Kristin’s segmentation initiative and associated marketing projects. The other was a significant departure for the company—pushing aggressively into the urology market, where the company had a negligible presence.
Not surprisingly, expanding the urology business was met with skepticism by AssuraMed’s old guard. “We’ve tried that already,” they said. “Our competitors have it locked up.” But Petras argued that AssuraMed had never gone after urology with resources and commitment. And that’s what the company did in 2012, investing heavily in leadership, a dedicated sales force, and expanded billing capabilities. By the end of 2013, the business had doubled in size.
Who’d-a thunk it? Not anyone accustomed to sprinkling.
One last thought on growth and resource allocation. As we said, it can seem as if there’s never enough money to fund growth the way you know it “has” to be funded. “To get this new product off the ground, we need at least $150,000 in advertising,” you might tell your boss.
“I hear you. Here’s $50,000,” might come the answer.
Sometimes $50,000 is all there is to spare in the budget. Sometimes $50,000 is all you get because of the sprinkling going on.
Regardless, in such situations, your only hope is to innovate around the problem. Unleash creativity instead of dollars.
Like WestJet Airlines did.
It happened like this. In December 2013, vastly outspent by competitors and facing a lack of awareness in their target markets. WestJet picked two flights traveling from Toronto to Calgary and installed a present-shaped kiosk with a digital screen in the waiting area. An interactive Santa Claus greeted customers before they boarded. Ho-ho-ho, he said, who are you and what would you like for Christmas? It all seemed harmless enough; most people were game and answered. A camera, one customer replied. Socks and underwear, said another. A blender. A warm scarf. And on and on.
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