Overview
When Growth Stalls: How It Happens, Why You're Stuck, and What to Do About It by Steve McKee
One of the toughest lessons every business leader learns is howhard it is to generate sustained growth. Stalled growth is therule, not the exception—even for the best-managed companies.That's especially true in unpredictable economic environments suchas the one we're experiencing today.
McKee has a unique understanding of what happens when growthstalls. His firm commissioned a study of 700 companies that had atone time been among the nation's fastest-growing businesses.Developed in concert with Decision Analyst, a leading nationalresearch and consulting firm, the study probed areas as diverse ascorporate structure, competition, branding, finance, and strategy.The target respondent profile were CEOs, owners, principals,presidents, managing directors or chairmen of the board. In-depthfollow-up interviews yielded fascinating stories and personalcomments from executives who had been living on the front lines ofreal-life growth crises. McKee presents compelling knowledge abouthow and why companies lose their way, and offers practical adviceabout how they can rekindle growth.
When Growth Stalls demonstrates that sluggish growth isgenerally produced not by mismanagement or strategic blundering butby natural market forces and management dynamics that are oftenunrecognized—and widespread. The book presents sevencharacteristics that commonly correlate with stalled growth andwhat to do about them. Some are external forces to which countlesscompanies have fallen victim: economic upheavals, changing industrydynamics, and increased competition. What McKee points out,however, is how often they catch companies off-guard. Moresurprising are four subtle and highly destructive internal factorsthat conspire to keep companies down: lack of consensus among themanagement team, loss of nerve, loss of focus, and marketinginconsistency. McKee makes the case that, regardless of what'sgoing on outside of an enterprise, it's what's inside thatcounts.
