Balancing Consistency & Growth

“Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.” - James Cash Penney

You’ll have established procedures to provide either a service or a product to your customers. And, if you’re good at what you do, those customers will have come to expect that same level of service. And customers don’t generally like change.

But for a business to grow, change is required. Change leads to growth. So how can you maintain the consistency that your customers have grown to love while still allowing yourself the chance to grow as a company?

Understand your mission

First and foremost, you need to know your core values. Maintaining your company culture and values will get more challenging as you continue to grow.

By keeping what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it at the forefront of what you do, you’re more easily able to build a consistent brand. 

read more: Why Every Business Must Focus on Risk Management

Agility vs. consistency

Just as you need consistency to grow, so too do you need to be agile. Consistency is paramount - consistent employees are reliable, showing up on time, and working hard. Consistent products are trusted and reliable.

But if a product or person is only consistent, consumers may view them as rigid. And rigidity can lead to failure to adapt to the ever-changing needs of the world we live in and the consumers we’re trying to target.

On the flip side, if a person or company is too agile, they may be considered unfocused and unstable. A product or service that hasn’t been carefully considered may come across as being chaotic and unreliable.

This means that there must be some form of strategic melange between consistency and agility - which will lead to a company being able to work to its best capacity to reach its purpose but also be fearless enough to try alternative methods with changing consumer demands.

Build a well-rounded team

Identify the strengths and weaknesses of your team to determine how you can complement them as you grow. Having a team with different personalities and skill sets is necessary to meet your growing organizational needs.

Ideally, you want a mixture of divergent and convergent thinkers.

Divergent thinkers are great at:

• Opening up problems
• Exploring possibilities
• Enlarging perspectives

Convergent thinkers work to:

• Hone in on solutions
• Focus on the best options
• Seek clarity

The divergent thinkers will bring innovation and experimentation, while the convergent thinkers will create stability and the process needed to provide consistency.

Create flexible processes

Just because processes are essential to maintaining consistency doesn’t mean that they need to be rigid. Your processes should be well-defined and have opportunities built in that allow your team to explore new paths. 

By understanding your goals and implementing the processes and company culture that will allow you to reach them, you’ll maintain consistency and promote growth simultaneously.

It’s up to you to encourage your employees

Of course, however, it is essential that you are always rewarding your employees when they do a great job to show their efforts have been appreciated. This will help keep them spurred on to work hard, grow in knowledge and skill, and progress further, more efficiently.

That’s why here at Gifted, we have created a simple-to-use Appreciation Program for you to automate client, colleague and employee gifting - so that everyone can be rewarded to keep the good vibes flowing and the business growth progressing!