One corporation, same common complaints – cost overruns; late delivery; backlog of inventory one quarter, short supply the next; errors in products and in meeting change orders; tension and mistrust between business units and with customers. All these issues cost the company millions of dollars and were harming relationships inside and outside the company walls.

The company's board and executive suite had their eyes on growth. Instead, what they got was stalled growth and declining stock performance.

The solution? There was a parade of common solutions, one after another addressing each symptom – Six Sigma, Process Re-engineering, and training, to name a few. The problems continued. Finally, the bet was placed on an enterprise-wide technology that was purported to draw down information from each business within the corporation, each function, each customer, inventory, customer orders, and performance metrics. It was supposed to predict demand and keep supply flowing. In an ideal world, this tool could be navigated to produce a comprehensive dashboard and give each business a just-in-time view of how they were doing.

Growth Through Integration

The result? More of the same chronic symptoms. The exception was one business within the portfolio. It was thriving and ready to take on more business. This business was admired by customers and internal peers alike. Yet the peers scratched their heads to understand how this unit appeared to undertake all the initiatives the rest of the corporation did, but they succeeded.

The difference? Integrated Growth. The leadership of this business unit knew that the technological and process changes needed to be integrated with the common sense of its employees and its relationships in other parts of the company, including its customers. It did not say "No" to corporate mandates that were supposed to fix things. But how they implemented them looked entirely different from the rest of the corporation. In fact, the day-to-day way they went about their work was different from the rest. They practiced growth through integration – integration of the material and human aspects of business throughout the life of each and every project.

What Integrated Growth Really Means

Integrated Growth (IG) is the disciplined, creative practice of wisely combining a business' material and human assets so that financial value and human value grow together, rather than in sequence or in tension.

IG treats every project as a dynamic combination of resources, relationships, capabilities, and opportunities – and asks how those elements can be arranged so that the business and the people it touches grow stronger together.

Integrated Growth in Practice

In this business unit, the desk of the leader was not off in an office. It was in the middle of the manufacturing floor, near the coffee break table, so everyone had easy access to her. The technology dashboard, that some felt took a computer scientist to physically navigate and understand the overwhelming amount of data, was not resisted or ignored. It was seen for its intended value, but its use was simplified to a few key numbers and flows that mattered to this unit. Furthermore, the unit's supervisors periodically collected the data from the machine and wrote it on a whiteboard that was also next to the coffee machine, so everyone could see it. When a quality or timing issue arose, every employee felt the responsibility to call a huddle to discuss why it happened and decide what to do about it. The leader often visited other units to understand why the inventory numbers in the technology did not match reality. She used the trust she had built with them to open flows of communication and parts between units, so both units won and did not create a jam for each other.

Why Most Growth Initiatives Fail

Most attempts at growth fail to the tune of 70-88% of the time. Integrated Growth is the exception. It works! And people from the boardroom to the shop floor, once the system for Integrated Growth is put into practice, realize it makes common sense. Growth is not achieved as a trade-off of business and technology vs. people. Nor is it achieved as business and technology and then the people. Similarly, it is not the people and their culture, and to heck with financials, technology, and other material aspects of business. It is the two sides of business working together as a growth helix from the outset of any attempt to do anything new and grow.

The leader of the business unit highlighted here knew how to do Integrated Growth intuitively, and she modeled it to her team. Clearly, not everyone in this or any corporation understands it or puts it into practice – hence, the seven to nine times out of ten failure rate.

The System Behind It

We are remedying that by making available the Third Angle Integrated Growth System (TAIGS™). Stay tuned for more unveiling and access to a proven system to help your business and the people it touches grow, together.

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