How to Navigate the In-Between of Growth

Many of us are now starting to think about 2020.

This relates to everyone, but right now I’m primarily going to be applying it to business owners and founders.

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So often we're working with somebody who wants to grow their business and who wants it to be more.

They want to grow from $45 million to $90 million and they want to advance. But have they conceived of an org chart at $90 million and then backed away from that into where they are now?

I want to talk about this at a conceptual level first because if they knew how to structure their day now to be at double their size, they would do that.

The only reason they don't do it is because they can't imagine it.

You have to upgrade the infrastructure.

Now what happens is - and this is why so many people get thrown off in this process - when you're at $45 million, to pick up this better future of $90 million, you are going to go from holding $45 million, to nothing in your hands, to holding $90 million.

What I want to talk to you about is that in between. It's scary. It's where Luke has to go into the cave in Star Wars (I've been watching too many Star Wars movies lately).

You're holding what you know. You want to go to this better future, but in the middle, you're holding nothing.

How most change works for people that are really embarking on profound change. They're holding what they know. They get freaked out. Most people just keep holding what they know. They may embark a little bit in the scary middle, but run right back to what they know.

People that are change- and growth-oriented are setting what they know down and they're saying, “I want to get to that better future.”

You're going to get there. It's not going to be easy. It's going to be unfamiliar. Whether it's the bottom line of what your company's bringing in or just the way that you're structuring your day, you're structuring it this way, but you want to structure it another way.

When you know that the scary in-between is real, it gives you a way of categorizing this experience to make sense of it.

Little side note and caution here: We work with business owners and founders that are oftentimes in a place where they want to hand something off to another team of owners or to a son or daughter. This is a big, big distraction you need to be aware of.

If you're holding your business and you're going to transition to someone else owning it, here's what happens...

You go away for a vacation. You're fatigued and you're tired. And then you come back with a lot of ideas and enthusiasm that just reinvigorates you at this level.

It's confusing to the customers, the employees, and if you're in a place where somebody is saying to you, “I'm going to let go one day”, and then they come back with enthusiasm from breaks, they're probably never going to let go.

Until you reconcile that fact, you're going to ride this ride with them rather than being able to be the leader you need to be. So wherever you're at, upgrade the infrastructure.

If you want more on this, I dive into it way deeper in the Figure That Leadership Out course on our online Leadership Academy.

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