Why we should choose to take the stairs

What do they say? Change is the only constant?

Growth is part of life… Necessary. Personal, Emotional and Business Growth are all challenging and while sometimes painful, ultimately fulfilling pursuits. At least in my experience!

If we are growing constantly, we are in a constant state of change. Change, while sometimes exhilarating, is a stressor. A form of pain or discomfort. This can obviously be necessary and useful, but not all the time!

I’m clearly not a medical professional, but from my own experience constant pain and stress is detrimental to everything! Mental, Physical, Emotional stressors etc. All cause unhealthy effects on the body and mind when applied constantly.

Constant pressure, strain and growth for a business can have the same negative effect.

Think of that constant change/pain as a ramp.

While we love to see a steadily growing line on our revenue graph, it’s usually, not the case anyway! Then so we spend extra effort to try to turn up the activity levels and turn that wavy revenue line into a nice, steady ramp. That leads to burn out.

So, we choose the stairs.

We choose to grow + consolidate. Or as the great W. Edwards Deming (or Shewhart really) would put it, we Plan + Do + Study + Act.

Plan your sprint. Execute. Review. Adjust. Go again.

Change, or learn something new. Try it on. See what it changes and what could be kept/improved, then tweak to improve.

A long-term team member and friend asked me, “Why do we need to grow? Why can’t we just stay the same size and do really good work?” It’s hard to argue with that approach. But I did…

We need to grow personally and in our relationships. Like nature in fact, all things need to grow to renew, create, inspire, and fulfil potential. The opposite is we atrophy. If we aren’t growing in business, we won’t be searching for new and better ways to do things and delivering ever improving service levels and value to our clients. If we aren’t growing, we aren’t providing growth opportunities to our team members. And the altruistic one to wrap it up, I absolutely believe the mission of a business should be to improve the lives of those it touches. That means creating jobs, being active in the community, being a small part in creating better humans. Growth can be so many things! Not just size or the top line!

So, we grow. We create. We study. We improve.

But we also pause, consolidate, reflect, and digest.

Then, we go again!

Never skip leg day. But never skip your rest day, either.