The more you drop into business and the analysis of business and watching how people approach business, the more you encounter the word growth.
Apparently no success without growth.
It is the mantra of all capitalism, isn't it?
It's now percolated through our lives into personal growth, academic growth, relationship growth and all of that other growth sh*te that people talk about all the time.
Here at The Campbell Clinic (now called The Campbell Clinic Group because we're all grown up), we're growing at about 8%.
It would be absolutely possible for somebody to come into this business, strip it bare, push it harder, crack the whip, and potentially double that number or even triple it, but it would be hard work, and you would only be able to hold it together for so long.
It would be a bit like the space shuttle on re-entry: lots of rattling and risk; it might blow apart and be left with nothing.
For us, though, growth is not the mantra. It's part of understanding that it's impossible to move forward as a business if you can't pay the wages and continue to pay them so that your staff is at the top end of the wage cycle.
Understanding the financial metrics is critical to doing that, but growth for growth's sake has another name: greed.
Generally speaking, companies want to grow because the people at the top stand to benefit the most. The company will be sold later on, or the people at the top will take the share options at the highest level and make the money, and so the motivation is personal, not professional, not societal.
We sit at about 8%, and that is a really good place to be.
We'll set a target probably a little bit above 8% and expect the fact that things will happen that we don't appreciate and that will knock it back down.
But here's the thing: We're here for the long term. (I know you're sick of me saying that.)
And so, at 8%, we'll double in nine years.
I'm 52 and the business will be double the size it is when I'm 61.
I know the size of the business now, and it would be crass of me to start rolling out numbers here, but I promise you that the numbers are ridiculous, so doubling those numbers is utterly ridiculous.
Am I happy to settle for double the numbers when I'm 61? To be honest, I'm probably happy to settle for somewhere around the numbers now when I'm 61 so double the numbers at 8% is winning a prize at the fair.
At 8% growth, we can run the practice with about 85% effort (that's a total dubious estimation on my part, but you understand what I mean).
It means that we're never running at full capacity as a team and as a facility, so we have a contingency.
Contingency is essential for peace of mind and happiness; it allows you to adapt when unexpected things come over the horizon (and they always come over the horizon).
And so, for now, we will shift past an obsession with growth and we'll try our best to hit 80% but it might be five next year and then 10 the year after or 16 next year and then who knows what but we won't centre all of our being, all of our well-being, all of our happiness and all of our contentment on a number that we picked out of the air, which was entirely random.
Blog Post Number - 3956