Hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours are spent worldwide on leadership development. Yet, study after study shows that most leadership programs don’t result in any meaningful improvement long term.

Where’s the disconnect?

In the world of coaching and development, middle managers are gaining more attention. While executives and senior leaders often receive coaching, it's crucial to invest in the growth of middle managers too.

We created The Growth Gauntlet to help leaders build high performing and sustainable organizations. The framework charts the evolution of our Six Imperatives: Sharpen Focus, Calibrate Culture, Strengthen Leadership, Elevate Talent, Align Structure and Amplify Communication across four Stages of High Growth: Emerge, Operationalize, Grow, Explore & Expand. Over the years we have used this framework to guide investors and leaders in their growth journeys. Read more to learn a few of the ways that we have used the framework.

Communication is the lifeblood of every company. It determines how aligned, productive, and healthy the company is. Communication provides and circulates the information needed for an organization to function, and areas where communication does not flow are inhibited from contributing. Effective communication channels can foster trust, relationships, innovation, and alignment. Open and candid communication can also help you successfully navigate unexpected challenges and take advantage of new opportunities.

“Structure follows strategy” is my mantra. Organizational structures, processes and systems exist to help you achieve your strategy. They provide clarity of roles and boundaries between functions. Processes are designed to advance work through the organization and push it out to clients/customers. Systems help us to track and measure progress so that we can optimize performance.

Our practice has largely focused on high growth companies who have raised capital from private equity investors. High growth businesses, particularly those that are private equity backed, have an added dimension of complexity - limited time and resources. The PE investment brings the resources (the carrot), but also brings with it time bound goals for achieving the return (the stick). The investment acts as the catalyst for the business to move to the next level of growth. As we worked with these companies fighting to grow and build a sustainable organization quickly, we realized that the stage of growth a company is in is very important context

Growth is hard. Taking an idea from inception and turning it into a stable, predictable, sustainable double-digit year over year high growth company is one of the most exciting and excruciating challenges a leader will face.

I was recently in a Board Governance Committee meeting discussing expanding the board. The CEO presented us with a list of possible candidates and asked, “Who on this list should we add?” Cue my mantra: “structure follows strategy.”