A framework can make a complicated business easier to discuss. It cannot decide where your company should grow or what your team is ready to take on.
Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up approach organises attention around four connected decisions: People, Strategy, Execution and Cash. That shared language can help leaders see how a problem in one area affects another.
Start with the business in front of you
A plan to enter a new market may be commercially attractive, yet depend on leadership capacity the business does not currently have. A delivery problem may look operational until the team examines what sales has promised.
The benefit of looking across the four areas is that a decision can be considered in context. Growth is rarely owned by a single function.
Make local relevance specific
“The South African context” means different things to different companies. A distributor, a software business and a professional services firm can operate in the same city while facing very different constraints.
Name the conditions that affect your decisions. These could include the availability of particular skills, customer payment patterns, supply reliability or the economics of regional expansion. Work with the facts of your company rather than a general story about the market.
Involve the people who must carry it forward
The founder’s ambition needs to become choices the leadership team understands and can own. That calls for discussion, challenge and agreement about what the business will prioritise.
The method provides a foundation for that work. An experienced coach can help the team examine assumptions and keep the conversation connected to decisions.
Framework: Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up and the Four Decisions. ScaleUp is an independent coaching business, not an accredited Scaling Up partner.