Smart Growth: Form and Consequences

by Terry S. Szold (Editor), Armando Carbonell (Editor)

Overview

Wall Street believes that all public companies should grow smoothly and continuously, as evidenced by ever-increasing quarterly earnings, and that all companies either "grow or die." Introducing a research-based growth model called "Smart Growth," Edward D. Hess challenges this ethos and its dangerous mentality, which often deters real growth and pressures businesses to create, manufacture, and purchase noncore earnings just to appease Wall Street.

Smart Growth accounts for the complexity of growth from the perspective of organization, process, change, leadership, cognition, risk management, employee engagement, and human dynamics. Authentic growth is much more than a strategy or a desired result. It is a process characterized by complex change, entrepreneurial action, experimental learning, and the management of risk. Hess draws on extensive public and private company research, incorporating case studies of Best Buy, Sysco, UPS, Costco, Starbucks, McDonalds, Coca Cola, Room & Board, Home Depot, Tiffany & Company, P&G, and Jet Blue. With conceptual innovations such as an Authentic Earnings and Growth System framework, a seven-step growth funnel pipeline, a Growth Decision Template, and a Growth Risks Audit, Hess provides a blueprint for an enduring business that strives to be better, rather than simply bigger.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231150507
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2010
Series:	Columbia Business School Publishing
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Edward D. Hess is professor of business administration and Batten Executive-in-Residence at The Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. He founded both the Center for Entrepreneurship and Corporate Growth and the Values-Based Leadership Institute at Goizueta Business School at Emory University.

Table of Contents

Smart Growth: Building an Enduring Company by Managing the Risks of Growth
1. Defining the Growth Mental Model
2. Smooth and Continuous Company Growth: The Exception Not the Rule
3. Economics: Theories of Growth
4. Organizational Design and Strategy: Theories of Growth
5. Biology: Theories of Growth
6. Smart Growth: Authentic Growth
7. Managing the Risks of Growth: Public Companies
8. Managing the Risks of Growth: Private Companies
9. It Is Time for Smart Growth
Appendix
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Mary Ann Glynn

Smart Growth is a provocative and useful evidence-based approach to understanding the principles of corporate growth.

— Mary Ann Glynn, Boston College

John R. Mullin

"This book is a terrific resource to all of us who have to work with smart growth every day. Written with the intent of adding to the discussion and debate over the means and methods of intervening where and how we grow, it offers a remarkably wide set of perspectives and topics ranging from ethics, laws, and standards to trends and case studies....This thoughtful book will be an important addition to the working libraries of reflective planners, students, and others concerned with the future form of our communities. Its message is too strong for any of us to ignore."

Norman Krumholz

"The authors raise the question of whether individual cities and suburbs can deal effectively with the forces of decline and sprawl or whether a regional agenda is essential. The objective of the essays is not abstract conjecture but individual and collective action. America will continue to grow, like it or not. The challenge is not to stop growth but to shape it in a way that contains sprawl and offers attractive living choices for families of all descriptions and of all income levels."

Neal Pierce

"Sprawl, for at least half a century, has been Americans' dominant form of development. We love it, hate it, keep doing it. Yet in smart growth, however hazily defined, an alternative is finally being offered. The puzzle is how to make smart growth real. It's a debate critical to our land's future form, indeed our soul as people. In this volume, with a cornucopia of practical ideas, the challenge is artfully engaged."

Editorial Reviews

Hess offers the reader a thoughtful critique of the assumptions underlying the prevailing logic for the growth imperative that is so widely accepted.

Robert K. Kazanjian

Hess provides insight as well as prescriptions for how to lead effectively and how to grow intelligently.

Kim Cameron

Named one of the Toronto Globe & Mail's Top 10 Managing Books for 2010

Toronto Globe & Mail

This book will challenge your basic assumptions about business and growth. It needs to be read and talked about in both companies and business schools.

R. Edward Freeman

This book is easily read and provides keen advice for individuals and companies that are involved in company strategic planning. If you are thinking about growing your company in a smart way, this is a must-read.

Asheville Citizen Times - Yang Fan

In this masterful work, Edward D. Hess shows us how companies can grow in a healthy and organic manner, one that is sustainable and beneficial for all stakeholders, including society as a whole.

Raj Sisodia

Hess takes dead aim at one of the sacred shibboleths of business—the notion that companies must 'grow or die'—and scores a bull's-eye. He makes a devastating case and demonstrates how destructive the blind pursuit of growth can be, and has been, to businesses of all types, especially publicly-owned ones. Along the way, Hess maps an alternative approach to managing business growth that focuses on the long-term health of the enterprise. It's a powerful argument and one that should be taken to heart by corporate executives, entrepreneurs, and policymakers alike.

Bo Burlingham

Smart Growth will bend your mind, challenge your assumptions, and set you on a new growth trajectory. If you want to understand how following advice from Wall Street can doom you to destruction, read this book.

Richard D'Aveni

Warning against the creeping corruption of 'managed earnings' and 'making the numbers,' Edward D. Hess wisely urges business manager-leaders to keep their focus on the real growth of getting better, not bigger, and creating true value, not short-term earnings per share.

Charles Ellis

Smart Growth is a provocative and useful evidence-based approach to understanding the principles of corporate growth.

Mary Ann Glynn

A new and radical contribution to business thought... Hess provides a blueprint for building an enduring business that strives to be better, rather than simply bigger.

San Francisco Book Review - Dominique James

Named one of Inc.'s Best Books for Business Owners 2010

Inc.

Hess's insight and research provide a navigational path that illuminates key success factors and models that drive exponential growth.

Jeffrey S. Shuman

Named one of Inc.'s Best Books for Business Owners 2010

Inc.

This book is easily read and provides keen advice for individuals and companies that are involved in company strategic planning. If you are thinking about growing your company in a smart way, this is a must-read.

— Yang Fan

Asheville Citizen Times

A new and radical contribution to business thought... Hess provides a blueprint for building an enduring business that strives to be better, rather than simply bigger.

— Dominique James

San Francisco Book Review

Academics, planning and design practitioners, and citizen planners trace the history of suburban growth and assess the spatial and temporal consequences of the current state of growth and technological change, examining and challenging assumptions about design, urban and suburban neglect and revival, private versus public property rights, and environmental ethics. They look at concepts and practices of smart growth and discuss future trends. Material originated at a March 2000 symposium; it is not indexed. Edited by Szold (urban studies and planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Carbonell (planning and development, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy). Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"Sprawl, for at least half a century, has been Americans' dominant form of development. We love it, hate it, keep doing it. Yet in smart growth, however hazily defined, an alternative is finally being offered. The puzzle is how to make smart growth real. It's a debate critical to our land's future form, indeed our soul as people. In this volume, with a cornucopia of practical ideas, the challenge is artfully engaged."

Neal Pierce

"This book is a terrific resource to all of us who have to work with smart growth every day. Written with the intent of adding to the discussion and debate over the means and methods of intervening where and how we grow, it offers a remarkably wide set of perspectives and topics ranging from ethics, laws, and standards to trends and case studies....This thoughtful book will be an important addition to the working libraries of reflective planners, students, and others concerned with the future form of our communities. Its message is too strong for any of us to ignore."

John R. Mullin

"The authors raise the question of whether individual cities and suburbs can deal effectively with the forces of decline and sprawl or whether a regional agenda is essential. The objective of the essays is not abstract conjecture but individual and collective action. America will continue to grow, like it or not. The challenge is not to stop growth but to shape it in a way that contains sprawl and offers attractive living choices for families of all descriptions and of all income levels."

Norman Krumholz