Growth and Success: The importance of business strategy and leadership (part two)
Part two of the Growth and Success paper highlights that, while growth is essential, it brings inevitable risks such as productivity dips, cultural strain and emerging capability gaps. The content is focused on how organisations can mitigate these pressures by leveraging technology to boost productivity, sustaining a culture that enables growth, and professionalising changemakers to drive transformation effectively.
Why is this paper relevant?
This paper is highly relevant to business leaders navigating growth, as it explains how to manage productivity risks, cultural strain and emerging capability gaps during transformation. Drawing on insights from senior leaders and current research, it provides practical strategies for leading people, embedding effective tools and building the skills needed to sustain competitive, long term growth. You will also find a comprehensive infographic showcasing skills that are most relevant to success project delivery broken down per industry.
Who should read this report?
- Chief Executive Officers, Chief Operating Officers, Chief Finance Officers, Directors of Strategy and Chief Transformation Officers who set strategy and corporate development – to identify and manage risk in a manner that supports sustainable growth, address factors that cause productivity dips, and to align transformation with long term mission, vision and values.
- Chief Project Officers who head up operations and delivery – to design processes for pace and flexibility, minimise productivity disruption, maintain stakeholder alignment and structure large programmes into manageable phases.
- HR Directors/Chief People Officers influencing people, culture and capability – to nurture a culture that can embrace change, design incentives that encourage collaboration and upskill changemakers to meet evolving needs.
- Digital Transformation Leads who oversee digital delivery and technology teams – to drive modernisation, simplify AI adoption, train teams effectively and help employees adapt to new ways of working without disrupting business-as-usual (BAU) activity.
- Business Change Directors, and Programme and Portfolio Directors – to articulate reasons and benefits of change, maintain clarity and momentum, prevent cultural dilution and ensure alignment across teams during periods of transformation and organisational growth.
- Risk and Governance Leads responsible for risk mitigation – to ensure governance supports delivery at pace, while preventing distraction, dysfunction or misalignment during growth driven by technological or cultural change.
Insights, ideas and recommendations
- Leverage technology to boost productivity while managing implementation risks. Adopt AI and digital tools with simplicity, clear goals and strong user training to avoid productivity dips and ensure effective uptake.
- Maintain and strengthen a culture that supports growth. Build leadership visibility, communicate clearly, tailor incentives to promote collaboration and cultivate a mindset that embraces change.
- Professionalise changemakers across the organisation. Invest in developing project management capability, upskill ‘accidental’ project managers and build specialist competence.
- Ensure stakeholders remain aligned during changes intended to drive growth. Maintain clarity of purpose and enable teams to adjust quickly without disrupting progress or pace.
- Anticipate and mitigate risks early through supportive governance.
Contributors
- Bob Bradley, Leadership Coach and Author
- Edmund Goodin, Principal Associate, Mills & Reeve
- Laura Riley, Associate Director at Micheal Page