Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Entrepreneurial Businesses

by Edward D. Hess

Simply put, most entrepreneurial start-ups fail. Those fortunate enough to succeed then face a second, major how to grow. This book focuses on the key questions an entrepreneur must answer in order to grow a business. Based on extensive research of more than fifty successful growth companies, Grow to Greatness discusses the top ten growth challenges and how to overcome them. Author Edward D. Hess dispels the myth that businesses must grow or die. Growth can create value. But, too much growth too fast outstrips effective processes, controls, or management capacity. Viewing growth as "recurring change," Grow to Greatness lays out a framework for how to approach business development―and how to manage its risks and pace. The book then takes readers through chapters that explore whether the time is right to grow, how to do it, and how to manage the vital reality that growth requires the right leadership, culture, and people. Uniquely, this book aims to prepare readers for the day-to-day reality of growth, offering up the lived experiences of eleven entrepreneurs. Six workshops to assess where readers stand now and a suite of templates that will prove to be useful over time help bring the book's teachings to life. After reading this book, entrepreneurs will have a real understanding of their readiness to grow and place in the growth cycle, as well as a concrete action plan for where to take their businesses next. Many books address how to start a business, but this is a unique, go-to resource for readers who want to learn how to thrive beyond the start-up phase.

Genres: Business, Leadership, Entrepreneurship

296 pages, Hardcover

First published April 25, 2012

About the author

Professor Edward D. Hess spent more than 30 years in the business world. He began his career at Atlantic Richfield Corporation and was a senior executive at Warburg Paribas Becker, Boettcher & Company, the Robert M. Bass Group and Arthur Andersen. He is the author of ten books, over 60 practitioner articles, and over 60 Darden cases, etc. dealing with growth systems, managing growth and growth strategies. His books include Hess and Liedtka, The Physics of Business Growth: Mindsets, System and Processes (Stanford University Press, 2012); Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Entrepreneurial Businesses (Stanford University Press, 2012); Growing an Entrepreneurial Business: Concepts & Cases (Stanford University Press, February, 2011); Smart Growth: Building Enduring Businesses by Managing the Risks of Growth (Columbia Business School Publishing, 2010); Hess and Goetz, So You Want to Start A Business (FT Press, 2008); The Road To Organic Growth (McGraw-Hill, 2007); Hess and Cameron, eds., Leading with Values: Virtue, Positivity & High Performance (Cambridge University Press, 2006); Hess and Kazanjian, eds., The Search for Organic Growth (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Smart Growth was named a Top 25 2010 business book for business owners by Inc. Magazine and was awarded the Wachovia Award for Research Excellence.

His current research focuses on the Darden Growth/Innovation Model, the challenges of managing private company growth, growth systems and behaviors. Hess has taught in Executive Education programs for Harris Corporation, Cigna, Timken, United Technologies, Genworth Financial, Pitney Bowes, Unilever Russia, Westinghouse Nuclear, Alpha Natural Resources, Alegco-Scotsman, FTI Consulting, Dover Corporation, Glen Raven Corporation as well as IESE (Barcelona) and the Indian School of Business.

Hess's work has appeared in Fortune magazine, JiJi Press, Washington Post, the Financial Times, Investor's Business Daily, CFO Review, Money magazine and in more than 300 other media publications as well as on CNBC, BusinessWeek.com, Fox Business News, Forbes.com, Big Think, Reuters.com., Inc.com, WSJ Radio, Bloomberg Radio, Dow Jones, MSNBC Radio, Huffington Post.com, Business Insider.com and Chief Learning Officer.com.

Prior to joining the faculty at Darden, he was Adjunct Professor and the Founder and Executive Director of both the Center for Entrepreneurship and Corporate Growth and the Values-Based Leadership Institute at Goizueta Business School, Emory University.

Reviews

[Lance McNeill]

Extremely practical

I love this book for its practical lessons and engaging case studies. I also appreciate a business book that doesn’t recycle the same old anecdotes we hear about unicorn tech startups. This book keeps Main Street business in mind

[David McClendon, Sr]

Buy Now From Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Unwipq
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xycJ_ApbQHw
There are few books that should be considered “business classics”. This book, Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Entrepreneurial Businesses is one of them.

In Search of Excellence started it off, in my opinion. Good to Great sets a high bar for all other business books, but The One Minute Manager and Who Moved My Cheese give the business leader insight into business in a simple, readable way.

Anyone who has a business and plans to grow that business should read this book. As business consultants, we can see a great deal of wisdom in the words of Hess. Too often, businesses grow too fast and cannot handle the change. These businesses have not built the proper foundation on which to grow.

To best take advantage of Grow to Greatness, one should read Built to Last and then Good to Great before reading this book. To round things out, one should also read In Search of Excellence as part of their business education.

In addition to this book, Grow to Greatness, I enjoyed the Coursera course by the same name, which Hess taught through the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.

If you are planning to start, run, and grow your own business, you should also add The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber and The One Minute Entrepreneur: The Secret to Creating and Sustaining a Successful Business by Ken Blanchard, Don Hutson and Ethan Willis to your startup reading list.


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Buy Now From Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Unwipq
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xycJ_ApbQHw

[Adrian Viesca Trevino]

Top 3 takeaways...

1) growth is a choice. Have to decide whether it’s best decision for your firm

2) focus is very important for entrepreneur. “2 inches wide, 2 miles deep”

3) when solving a problem leave fire extinguisher behind (process/tool by which others put out fire without your help)

[Alex Bolotov]

The best book about growing your busyness for not businessmen.