Bigger Isn't Always Better: The New Mindset for Real Business Growth

By Robert M. Tomasko

It's time to rethink what growth is all about: in business, bigger is not always better. Based on 10 years of research and dozens of personal interviews, Bigger Isn't Always Better identifies seven... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814408664
• ISBN13: 9780814408667
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: AMACOM/American Management Association
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.7" x 9.4"
• Age Range: 17 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Bigger Isn't Always Better

Often in business, we spend so much time and effort on making our business bigger, adding new products, and focusing on stock market prices that we forget to ask ourselves if this growth is actually helping our business or if it is slowly draining our resources until we are no longer productive. Bigger Isn't Always Better examines this issue and suggests that growth is not necessarily about getting bigger. Bigness is not sustainable. Instead, the author suggests that business look at growth as moving forward and continuously progressing. This kind of growth is purposeful, thoughtfully planned with the intention of bettering the business' products and customer services. There are quite a few gems in this book. I found the descriptions of the 21 mind bugs particularly useful. Mind bugs are common ways that we think and things that we tell ourselves that distort reality and act as hurdles to healthy growth. I also thought that the section "Are You a Fixer or a Grower?" was quite enlightening. This section analyses what drives each of these personality types and how they correspond with very different business strategies.

How growth-oriented business goals can kill the golden goose

Robert M. Tomasko's BIGGER ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER: THE NEW MINDSET FOR BUSINESS GROWTH draws some important distinctions between growth and expansion. While increased size is desirable, too often companies grow too quickly and many may ultimately see their demise in their very growth-oriented goals. Real growth lines in progress and knowing how to link success to strategic plans and logical organizational changes - the types of changes BIGGER ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER covers in chapters which probe growth cycles, judgement calls, and knowing how to access opportunity for its real-world applications.

What is your mindset?

What we have in this volume is a brilliant explanation of what "real business growth" is, and, how to achieve and then sustain it. Tomasko suggests seven characteristics which "growers" share. They are guided and informed by a mindset which recognizes that real growth "is about reaching full potential, not maximum size. It means progress, not excess; it is fueled by imagination, not expansion." He devotes a separate chapter to each of the seven common characteristics. In Part 1, he describes what growth is and isn't, then in Part 2, he explains what growers do. They know what they need to know and where to locate it. They know what they want to achieve and tell the truth when pursuing it. They initiate creative attention to generate and sustain forward movement, meanwhile winning hearts and minds of others involved. They master what Tomasko characterizes as "momentum with bounce." They know when to let go, agreeing with Jason Jennings that "if it's DOA, bury it." And they "share the wealth" when collaborative effort achieves the given objectives. The more "growers" there are within a given enterprise, the more likely that it will achieve "real business growth." Hence the importance of recognizing and supporting them, of course, but also doing so with regard to prospective "growers" as well. Every effort should be made to accelerate their development. When paraphrasing one of the exemplary growers, psychologist Martin Seligman, Tomasko observes that "business is not just about fixing what is broken. It is about taking what is best in an enterprise and nurturing its further development. Leading this kind of growth requires a very different mentality from that needed to manage ongoing activities. The best growth champions are not the people who are in charge of today's successful organizations. What makes best sense for sustaining the status quo is often irrelevant or counterproductive for surpassing it." When Reginald Jones selected his successor as GE's next CEO, he urged Jack Welch to "Blow it up!" While re-reading this book, as is my custom, I highlighted key passages. In this instance more than 100 which caught my eye. Here are two representative excerpts. When knowing where to look for growth opportunities: "Blinders from existing business models or getting caught up in the hot concept (convergence, deregulation, Internet-means-that-everything-is-different, and so on) will also limit our ability to see the market clearly. When we see something new, we seldom stop to appreciate it for what it is. Instead, evolution seems to have trained us -- hard-wired our brains -- to slot things into categories or explanations that are derived from our past experiences. In pigeonholing things this way, wee run the risk of filtering out what it is that makes the novel news." (page 119) However, "As Picasso once noted: `Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.' The trick is to plan the movement from old to new in a way that does not le