4 Imperatives For Profound Business Growth

During my 2 decades coaching business owners and executives on igniting and accelerating their business growth, I discovered that there are four key requirements for achieving profound business growth and success. I realized the effectiveness of this combination of four capabilities after I had helped a client grow more than 250% in three years and then he quintupled his net profit. Yes, he added a zero to revenue.

When all four, Strategic Insight and Vision, Operational Execution, Conscious Character, and Developed Intuition, come together in an individual or a small group, extraordinary results are achieved. It doesn’t matter what the industry is, or whether it is for profit, non-profit, or governmental, the outcomes are astounding. It is time I shared these key requirements beyond my clientele. Development methods will come in future articles and classes.

Operations = Q1

The first, and most obvious is excellence in operational planning and execution. This is where the rubber meets the road in any endeavor. As a result, training, capability and experience in this, are a must for success. There has to be a level of focus, energy, and follow through applied to the daily execution and completion of the tasks needed to bring the service or products produced to the customer in the volume and quality they expect.

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey described his Quadrant One, Q1, as Urgent and Important. This is where operational execution lives. It also turns out to often be the time trap for founders and executives. Significant organizational goal achievement, which includes revenue and net profit growth, requires consistent Q1 time and energy. But you already knew that completely. The car doesn’t move with no rubber on the road.

Strategic Insight = Q2

The next, and equally important key to igniting growth acceleration, are the Strategic Insight activities of the second quadrant, Q2, Important but Not Urgent. The strategic insight, vision, and planning behind effective Q1 execution, happens in Q2.

As the book Rocket Fuel by Wickman and Winters lays out, it takes a balance of both visionary and operational excellence to grow significantly. You cannot have great execution without great insight, vision and planning and organizational focus on the actions for achieving the designed results. But you already knew this too. Q1, operations, and Q2, strategic vision, are both required for lift off and transformation.

Character = Q2’s Foundation

Now we come to the two other less obvious key requirements, both hidden in Q2. Q2 is a journey from near the firefighting mode of Q1 on the left had edge to the deep visionary, if you would, state of being, in the far-right edge of Q2.  The foundation of action that few rarely think about is character, both of individuals and of the whole organization.

Character is your deeply held set of habits and perspective habits that most people consider fixed and permanent. They are not. Character starts building during our pre-verbal childhood and after, as we grow up. Much of our character we can re-choose and rebuild. This is a very deep extensive subject that I will only touch on here.

Character = efficiency

The reason that character is so critical in almost every endeavor is that it is a foundational habit structure for how we go about life and pursuit of success. The efficiency of character trait habits, allow us to look at information and make instant decisions and take required action. This was first designed and used, for life saving reactions when saber tooth tigers were much more frequent.

Character traits are constant platforms for choice, but they are not beyond transformation and refinement. Given the constancy and stability of character, we rarely look at ourselves at that depth and as a part of the world we can transform to fit our needs. Honing the tools of character is crucial for profound impact and success in the world.

Few of us have all the required set of character trait tools for success in place from our childhood. The specifics and methods of character evolution and the effect it has on success has been a study of mine for more than 50 years.

Intuition = Q2’s Secret Tool

Now we come to the most hidden and least understood tool of the four key requirements for profound impact and success, intuition. This is both a deep Q2 skill and a major component of what that Not Urgent and Important quadrant is built on. From my 30 years of research and pursuit of intuition, I can absolutely say, it is possible to deepen and expand it. It does however, take time and daily committed effort.

When the nuances of any organizational situation, market, products, finances, character… are correlated and understood, the best path forward stands out. The same is true of research and creative work, take Steven Jobs as an excellent example of that. The outcome of deep intuition’s ability seems almost like magic. Sometimes it feels like that when a pursued insight for a problem presents itself in that burst of energy that we call an epiphany. We wake up and the possibility and ramifications are, finally, clear and obvious. Those who have deep intuition already, are the people we seek out for their understanding and insight at critical moments or for missions we are intent on achieving.

Intuition is a Q2 tool for insight and guidance. With strengthening and honing, intuition interwoven with expertise in strategic planning, focused tactical planning and action and supported by the foundation of character traits and habits, profound and quite astounding results are consistently achieved.

During my years of study of intuition and its development, I’ve come to understand that character awareness and honing has to be done concurrently to support the learning and deepening of intuition, a very misunderstood yet powerful human skill that is the main tool for Q2 and its strategic insight and vision.

Wrap Up Validation

One of my chief enjoyments in life is to lead people through the epiphany series they need to have, to reach the goals they want to achieve. Also, helping those who are willing, ambitious and courageous enough to reconfigure their character gaps and deepen their intuition. One insight after another both tactically, strategically, and internally allows them to take specific actions their business or endeavor require to achieve the stunning success they really want. This validation reinforces the four key requirements, Operational Excellence, Strategic Insight and Vision, Conscious Character, and Developed Intuition they are building, and lead to their repeated sustained profound achievements.

Let me know what you think in the comments.