May 2004 

Thanks for all of the positive feedback on the 3 Steps To Successful Growth in our last newsletter. (View the article in February 2004 Issue)

Based on your feedback we will keep focused on growth in this issue. To continue along a path to successful implementation, we are providing you with an actual diagnostic tool to help you determine where you actually are on the growth curve and your business’ readiness to accelerate. This will help you pinpoint strengths and areas that need shoring up to ensure your firm is set for sustainable, quality growth.

We can’t discuss growth without talking about vision and leadership. It is important to take a moment, reflect on what vision actually is and how it has a direct connection to growth.

I define vision as setting the table for growth and success. It sets the tone for “Why” “What” and “How” in terms of where you want your business to grow.

• Why — What is the purpose and dream? Vision is fed by desire and receives its direction from the heart.
• What — How does it build on your business’ current strengths — it’s heart? When vision is grounded in possibility and contains balance and structure, your chances of long term, substantial growth dramatically increases.
• How — Is leadership living the vision: illustrating, demonstrating, and communicating it with day-to-day consistent actions?

Leadership is not only formal leaders and explicit leadership roles and expectations. Leadership also includes informal leaders who commit to the firm’s success and demonstrate it in their every day performance. Your firm will never obtain the growth you desire without balanced cultural, growth, and performance goals. But, all of those things are wasted if there is not good leadership to actually communicate it, inspire it, but more importantly, live it themselves.

The best leaders are the people who use day-to-day actions to communicate, illustrate and demonstrate the vision and strategy for growth. “Everyday, this is what I’m doing to help us achieve the vision of growth we seek”. When a leader interacts and communicates this with their people, they’re letting them know what they — as leaders are doing to contribute to the strategy.

Their people emphatically say, “I get the strategy, I’m doing it or I’m stretching toward it” instead of “I know you told us what the vision and growth goals are but how does that translate to my desk?”

For a business to be successful today, the market is demanding something different from leaders. Business people are questioning the deeper, underlying methods and motives of their leaders. Success, growth and profitability have nothing to do with titles and control and everything to do with the faith, the vision and the love leaders bring to their work.

Grow your business by living the vision. Say it, show it and do it — with heart.

Please visit our web site at

We were recently profiled in issues of American Banker and several Thomson publications special reports.  Topics of these reports included a report on CEO's Vision, Strategy, Challenges of Technology Implementation and a review of Leadership.

We have posted these articles at:

In our last issue, we focused on what is needed to grow a business. I received overwhelming feedback from many of you – it struck a chord. Some asked for more specific information on how to balance strategy, execution, performance and success as discussed in the article. Thank you to everyone who contacted me wanting to continue the dialogue.

In this issue, we have provided a tool allowing you to measure where you are on the growth readiness curve. It allows you to measure the 10 most critical areas needed for growth. It has been tested and validated by top high performing companies across North America.

I use the Growth Readiness Assessment with our clients at the start of any consulting assignment where growth is the focus. This is a diagnostic tool used to measure the focus and alignment of the leadership team across select areas instrumental to growing a business over the long term. It sets the table – what’s working, what could be working better, what is or should be planned and what is in the works.

Once the business leader and I have a clear and shared perspective of their firm’s growth readiness, the Growth Readiness Assessment becomes the foundation for a growth strategy. It helps us determine what planning tools we need to move forward and helps prioritize what’s most important.

Overall, remember four things as you review the 10 elements for solid growth:

• Clarity — The current heart of the business, and how your strategies will strengthen and build on that heart.
• Balance — It’s about both not either/or. Money and quality. Sales and relationships. Strategy and execution Business analytics and people/culture building.
• Focus — The single biggest differentiator of success in growing sustainable, quality businesses, focus is key to execution and excellence in implementation.
• Adaptability — Differentiates firms that do well for certain stages of growth and maturity. Often firms skyrocket at certain stages and plateau or implode suffer because they can’t adapt. Another both — not either/or is discipline and consistency.

The assessment details ten specific questions (for a more in-depth version please contact me and I will email it to you). It focuses primarily on core offerings, value added services, leadership, culture, talent and direction.

It should take you only a few minutes to gauge how your firm is doing. After taking the assessment, you may want to print it and use it for your own information and/or awareness, or use it as a tool with your team to enhance alignment and focus.

The goal of this newsletter is to provide my friends and colleagues with valuable, free information and tools they can use immediately upon reading. If you would like more information, as always feel free to call or email me at steve@walmsleyandco.com.

Upcoming Workshops:

Business Builders:

Success Councils

• Ongoing series for founders and executives
• Peer and expert advisors

Entrepreneurial Professionals:

Breathe New Life Into Your Practice

Mastery Implementation Series

Corporate Clients:

(Private Events):

• Advancing Results through Quality Relationships
  April - July 2004
• Developing Leader-Coaches To Implement Strategy
  June 2004
• High Impact Client Consultation Practices
  May through August 2004
• Client Relationship Management - practices for retaining and deepening business relationships
• Customer Segmentation Clinics and Coaching
• High Performance Coaching Approaches

If you have a subject you are interested in, or an article you would like to suggest for our newsletter, please email Sherri
@walmsleyandco.com

Growth Readiness Assessment

Instructions:

Look at your business today, and then:

• Evaluate where you stand on each of the 10 elements – do you have solid execution? Do you plan to enhance execution in the near future? Has this not yet been addressed?
• Check the column that applies (A, B, C) to each question.
• Want a broader, maybe more objective insight? Ask your team the same questions. Use the tool as a “discussion guide” and ask questions to really peel back the layers. Ask a cross-section of professionals and staff – some who set the standard and some who seem to be more critical and skeptical about your firm’s success.

Thanks for taking the time to read this newsletter. We value your support.