The DO:
Steve, why has growth become such a central issue for leaders right now?
Steve:
Most leaders I speak to feel pressure coming from several directions at the same time.Markets are uneven. Capital is still available, but it comes with sharper questions and higher expectations. Investors expect progress, not promises. At the same time, technology, especially AI, is moving faster than most organizations can absorb, raising expectations around productivity and speed.
Add geopolitical uncertainty and regulatory complexity, and leaders have very little margin for error. In that environment, growth buys flexibility. It creates room to invest, adjust course, and keep strong people engaged. Without growth, choices narrow quickly, even in companies that are otherwise well run.
There is also a human side leaders often underestimate. People stay where they feel momentum. You see it in faster decisions, higher energy, and teams taking responsibility instead of waiting for direction. Growth signals that effort leads somewhere.
The DO:
Where should organizations realistically be looking for growth today?
Steve:
Most growth conversations still start with the P&L. Revenue, pricing, volumes, costs, productivity. These levers matter. But today, they are rarely sufficient on their own.
Sustainable growth now comes from several engines moving together. Core businesses need to become sharper. Technology must free up capacity instead of adding complexity. New products or adjacencies can open additional paths.
What is most underused, however, is the organization itself.
People closest to customers and operations see opportunities early. The problem is not insight; it’s action. Too often, ideas stall because decision rights are unclear or escalation paths are slow. When ownership is clear, growth shows up in small but compounding ways: quicker fixes, fewer handovers, and better ideas being implemented without waiting for permission.
This does not require large initiatives. It requires clarity on priorities, clear mandates, and leaders backing decisions once they are made.
The DO: What tends to limit organizations’ ability to grow in this environment?
Steve: Most organizations are not short on ideas. They struggle with follow-through.
People stay in their lanes because they’ve learned what feels safe. Over time, decisions move upward, accountability blurs, and initiative slows. I’ve seen capable teams hold back simply because no one knew who had the mandate to move forward.
Capabilities matter as well. Growth now requires experimentation, customer insight, comfort with data, and collaboration across functions. When these skills are not built deliberately, progress depends on a few individuals carrying too much weight. That doesn’t scale.
This has less to do with strategy decks and more to do with daily behavior: who decides, how fast, and with how much confidence.
The DO:
If you had to leave leaders with one thought, what would it be?
Steve:
Growth is often discussed as something that happens in the market. In reality, it is shaped inside the organization.
The companies that handle uncertainty best make ownership explicit at every level. People feel accountable for progress, not just for delivering tasks. They are encouraged to think like owners, to push for improvement, and to speak up when something can be done better. You see it in fewer approval loops, faster trade-offs, and problems solved closer to where they arise.
When direction is clear, decisions move, and people feel trusted, uncertainty becomes something the organization can work through rather than something that brings it to a halt.
Learning
Implementation
