At some point in almost every strategy project, somebody changes a number in Excel. Five percent growth becomes fifteen. Sometimes even thirty-five. The spreadsheet accepts this without protest. It adjusts the formulas, recalculates the totals and shows us a much more attractive future. Unfortunately, organizations are less cooperative.
I have spent much of my career working on strategy and transformation projects. And I have seen plenty of companies with an ambitious owner, a convincing strategy and a genuine market opportunity that still failed to deliver the expected growth. Not because they lacked ambition. Because the company behind the ambition was not ready for it. That is an important distinction.
The entrepreneur matters. Of course. A hesitant owner can slow down a company. A founder who cannot delegate can become a bottleneck. A management team that thinks too small will probably achieve too little. But reducing the growth potential of an entire company to the limitations of one person is far too easy. Thirty-five percent growth is not five percent growth with more enthusiasm. It is a different company.
It means more customers entering an organisation that may already be struggling to serve the existing ones. It means more people joining teams whose managers are already too busy to manage. It means more pressure on systems, decisions and cooperation between departments.The first signs are rarely dramatic. A few more mistakes. Longer delivery times. Another experienced employee who has to step in. Sales blaming Operations. Operations complaining that Sales keeps selling exceptions. The management team becoming involved in decisions it thought it had delegated.
For a while, everybody works harder and the company continues to grow. Then the margin starts to disappear.
Growth capacity
I believe the growth capacity should be tested in every serious strategy process: can this organisation actually carry the ambition we are putting on top of it? That is not the same as asking whether the market is large enough.
A market analysis may show that thirty-five percent growth is possible. It does not tell you whether this company can deliver it, with its current leadership, people, internal dynamics, data and remaining energy for change. That requires a very different conversation.
Not only: where can we find more revenue?
But also: where will the organisation start to bend if we succeed?
In one company, the constraint may be a founder who still takes every important decision. In another, it is a management team that avoids conflict. Elsewhere, it is a sales organisation that can win new customers but an operation that cannot onboard them profitably. Sometimes the organisation simply has no energy left. After years of projects, reorganisations and unfinished initiatives, management announces another transformation while employees quietly wait for this one to pass as well. No amount of entrepreneurial confidence solves that. This does not mean companies should lower their ambitions until they feel comfortable.
Quite the opposite. If thirty-five percent growth is genuinely possible, build the organisation that can carry thirty-five percent growth. Change the decision-making. Strengthen the management layer. Develop the necessary behaviour. Remove the political obstacles. Make the data useful. Stop depending on a handful of people who rescue the company every time its processes fail. Only then does the growth target become more than an optimistic number in a spreadsheet.
The entrepreneur may raise the ceiling.
But the whole organisation has to hold it up.
