Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Entrepreneurial Businesses

To attain high employee engagement, employees need to feel like they “own” their job in that they have input into how it is done and some stake in the outcome.

One entrepreneur told me that every day is “show time;” in that he learned that he was on stage every day and he needed to behave accordingly.

A growing business needs processes to ensure that cash flow stays positive, inventory is managed, the right people are hired and trained, and bad hires are terminated quickly.

7. As you push decisions down, you must spend more time in alignment and prioritization, making sure people are focused on the right thing, that they are communicating well and getting along, and that they’ve got the requisite skill sets to do what needs to be done.

If you are trying to create something entirely novel, then my advice is to manage your risk by engaging customers in the co-creation of your new product or service.

10. Meaning, fun, showing appreciation, emotional rewards, and teaching all contribute to a culture that can result in high employee engagement.

Good cultures do not just happen; they take constant work and upkeep.

Bradford D. Smart, Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping the Best People (New York: HarperCollins, 2005).

Growth requires the entrepreneur to continuously redefine his or her relationship to the business and to its employees. Because growth changes what the entrepreneur does each day, his or her focus necessarily will change. The continuing change in focus requires that the entrepreneur develop new skills, which are often quite different from those ent