The following is an excerpt from Leading Firms: How Great Professional Service Firms Succeed & How Your Firm Can Too by David C. Kuhlman. In the book, Kuhlman distills 25 years of
experience advising senior management at some of the world's most prominent consulting firms. This excerpt from Chapter Six: "The Growth Engine" explores two of the key factors driving growth in the most successful firms.
Chapter 6:
The Growth Engine
The capacity to grow differentiates firms from one another but growth does not. Every firm has a Growth Engine, but in most organizations it sputters along fueled only by the natural impetus to grow and sometimes even working against it. Using the firm's growth engine as a differentiating capability requires focusing on the right kinds of growth for the right reasons and then removing impediments to natural growth. Enabling and enhancing the natural forces at play in moving the firm forward creates momentum and an expansive culture that ultimately separates one firm from another.
In this sense the growth engine is not just about economic growth; it is about the firm's ability to expand, explore, and renew itself continually. This capability, this orientation, improves relevance to clients, creates an impatience for personal growth versus ladder-climbing, and encourages a self-reinforcing culture of success.
Thinking Differently About Sustained Growth
At the highest level, the growth equation for a professional service firm is very simple:
