Will your growth strategy soon run out of gas?

Strategic leaders look for signs that their strategy is aging.

THINK ON IT: Will your growth strategy soon run out of gas? 

We’ve all seen businesses run their course: Blockbuster, Borders, Kodak, Radio Shack, Circuit City, Toys R Us, just to name a few. Each for their own confluence of reasons, but all with the common theme of having an aging growth strategy that ran out of gas.

Recognizing the signs of strategic fatigue and taking appropriate action is paramount to business continuity.

It’s simple physics, summed up in the second law of thermodynamics: everything devolves to a state of disorder.

Everything, including our business strategy, is eventually subject to diminishing returns. Left unchecked, a business moves from growth to stagnation, following the classic S-curve.

The trick is to recognize when your strategy is nearing the productive peak of its S-curve and create a new S-curve by transforming your business. The timing of when you embark on a transformation is critical. Too early and you risk getting too far ahead of your team. Too late and you risk stagnation and losing the best part of your team.

Or worse. Your business.

Hindsight is for business case studies. Foresight is for the survival of your business.

What are the warning signs that your strategy might be running out of gas?

Premium Members, read on for ways to recognize the signs of strategic aging. (Become a Premium Member. Paid subscribers get access to nearly 100 tools and how-tos on implementing strategic topics, including a 7-part series to help leaders build their own strategic capacity.)

"Today is when everything that's going to happen from now on begins." — Harvey Firestone, Jr.

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