BUSINESS
I
recently read about
the five stages of small
business growth in the
Harvard Business Review
by Neil Churchill and Virginia. L. Lewis. The article
discussed the evolutionary process of a small
business. It illustrated how
the growth of a business
is characterized by studying its size and its maturity.
There is a direct correlation between size and
maturity. Ideally, as a
business matures, so too
it grows in size. Yet, we
also need to consider
two things: this may not
be the goal for all small
businesses, and we can’t
reduce a whole industry
and all its many different
goals to a single graph.
Luckily, the article was in
depth. It showed a variety of diagrams to illustrate
the stages of business
growth, which I may discuss in detail in another
article. For now, what
struck me was one specific graph that showed
growth as a result of crisis.
The article defines the
five stages of business
growth as Stage 1: Existence; Stage 2: Survival;
Stage 3: Success; Stage
4: Take Off; Stage 5:
Resource Maturity. While
each of these stages are
worthy of discussion, for
the sake of this article
what I would like to talk
about is that it is a crisis
that leads to growth or
evolution, and in some
cases dare I say revolution, of a business.
is the crisis of autonomy
that leads to growth. As
the business keeps growing, new crises arise and
it is the management
of these that leads to a
strong, healthy, successful and larger business.
It helped me to see these
scary situations in a new
light and I encourage
you to see the things that
may have shaken your
business as catalysts for
growth as well.
As a manager of my own
business, seeing crisis
in a chart displayed as
a measure for business
growth was exciting. Seeing obstacles that shook
the business to the core
as a catalyst for growth
suddenly made obstacles
inspiring.
For instance, in stage 1
of a small business existence, the typical crisis
common to all business is
the question of what kind
of management or structure is right to run this business. It is called the crisis
of leadership. In stage
2, the survival mode, it
Since 1994, Rishi Gerald, founder and CEO of RishiVision and
entrepreneurial coach, has empowered thousands of businesses.
Rishi has an MBA in marketing and entrepreneurial studies and a BBA
in accounting. He has spent nearly twenty years coaching, consulting,
managing and supporting thousands of businesses from new startups
to active global leaders.
For more information on Rishi, please visit www.rishivision.com.