You Can't See Growth Looking Only Inside the Business

You can run a company from inside the four walls.

You can't grow it well from inside the four walls alone.

Strong operators tend to know their businesses exceptionally well. They understand their people, processes, customers, financials, sales performance and operational constraints.

That internal discipline is essential.

But growth requires another lens.

I’m a deer hunter, and there’s a pretty good analogy here. You can put trail cameras all over a piece of property and accumulate a tremendous amount of information. You can know exactly what’s walking past a particular stand, at what time and how often.

Useful information.

But if you never consider the weather, wind, food sources, hunting pressure, the rut or what’s happening on the neighboring property, you can become extremely knowledgeable about a very small piece of the picture.

Business leaders can make the same mistake.

Internal data answers important questions about the performance of the business. External data helps explain the environment in which that performance is occurring.

You need both.

Is the market expanding or contracting? Are customer expectations changing? Are economic conditions helping or hurting demand? Is one segment behaving differently from another? Are competitors moving in ways that create a threat—or an opening?

Without that context, even excellent internal data can lead to incomplete conclusions.

Imagine sales in a particular segment are flat. Viewed only internally, management may conclude that sales execution needs to improve.

But what if the overall market for that segment is down 15 percent?

Suddenly flat performance looks different.

The reverse can also be true. A company may be growing 5 percent and congratulating itself on strong execution while its market is growing 12 percent.

The company is growing.

It may also be losing ground.

That's why CEOs should deliberately pair internal and external views.

Rates of Change and internal dashboards can tell you what's moving inside the business. Customer research, market data, economic indicators, segment trends and competitive movement can help explain why it's moving—and potentially what might happen next.

Neither view is sufficient by itself.

External market information without a strong understanding of your own business can turn into speculation. Internal information without market context can create a kind of corporate tunnel vision.

And the answer isn't to bury the leadership team under more data.

The objective is disciplined awareness.

What are the handful of outside forces that could materially affect our growth strategy? What indicators might provide an earlier signal? And how do those signals compare with what we're seeing inside our own business?

That's when data starts informing strategy rather than simply documenting performance.

The same principle applies in the woods. I don't need every piece of information about every deer in South Carolina. I need the information that helps me make a better decision about this property, under these conditions, today.

CEOs should expect the same from their business intelligence.

Running a company requires internal discipline.

Growing one requires understanding the environment in which that company competes.

The strongest growth decisions happen when internal truth and market truth are viewed together.