Recently, I came across an organization that works in an adjacent sector to BroadReach Group, the company I lead. I was quite surprised to learn that they had developed an explicit long-term strategy to stay small. This means they would not grow. To be sure, there are benefits to being small. For example, the US Government sets aside some outsourced projects exclusively for small businesses to compete on to promote the small business community and spread opportunity around.

A business that stays small can be focused, nimble, perhaps keep more of a family feel to the organization. And so long as the US Government or other clients set aside some contract work for small businesses, there should be a market. So, some might say there’s nothing wrong with this strategy to intentionally stay small.

I have written in the past about having a growth mindset and creating a culture of growth: why is that important? Staying nimble, focused, and family-oriented sounds good, right? Well, there are at least four reasons why intentionally staying small is not a good long-term strategy.

First, if you purposely stay small it gets increasingly hard to foster and fund innovation. The rest of the market you’re in is innovating, creating new approaches, and trying new things. But if you just keep doing the same projects, keeping things contained, there is a limited infusion of new people, new thinking, and new ideas. So eventually you’ll start to lose the projects you have won in the past to other firms with new ideas.

Second, and related to the first, if the market overall is growing and you are staying the same, then other organizations competing against you are growing. That means they need to hire more people, which then means they will be trying to hire away your best talent. And if your best talent starts leaving, you’ll be less likely to hold on to even your current business.

Further, an expanding market means that new, small organizations are being spawned – new competitors. These new competitors, even if they are smaller for now, will likely be pursuing your projects and people. So that actually means you won’t just stay the same, you’ll eventually start shrinking.

Finally, if you are not growing, your ultimate impact is limited. Other people and organizations will have an ever-greater impact and reach. Many organizations create grand, lofty vision and mission statements around the impact they want to create. Yet, if they are truly serious about these statements, then how do they expect to achieve them by staying the same?

No doubt, growth can create plenty of challenges. Seeking growth opens us up to more chances to fail. Growth can also change the operating culture of your organization, and necessarily causes you to restructure, put in place more processes and systems. Yet, even if your operating culture and organizational structures evolve, growth doesn’t have to take you away from your core values. In fact, your values must hold as you grow. They are like your DNA; many other things can change but not your core values.  

Growth is also a magnet for new ideas, new talent, and new possibilities. Fresh thinking may challenge the status quo and create a tension in an organization, yet this tension – if channelled well – generates positive energy and forward momentum.

This is why, at BroadReach Group, we seek to grow. We want to continue attracting top talent and keep our current talent challenged and excited to be here. We want to foster innovation and keep experimenting with new approaches and technologies. This requires talent and investment of resources.

For example, BroadReach recently made the decision to enter the US healthcare market, bringing our proven South African-developed technology solutions to an environment sorely in need of transformation. The US healthcare ecosystem must modernize and become more efficient and effective at delivering better health for all Americans, not just those with good health insurance and easy access to good healthcare providers.

There are enormous inefficiencies and misallocations of resources across US healthcare which make the system ultimately unsustainable. BroadReach’s AI-powered Vantage technology solutions amplify the effectiveness of a stretched health workforce by recommending actions and helping them implement personalized action consistently. Recommended actions include assessing the social factors that are statistically proven to influence health outcomes, such as where you live, and whether you have access to good nutrition, transportation, and housing. Our solutions enable clinicians and patient-advocates to deliver truly patient-centric interventions, directing help and resources where they are needed most.

BroadReach Group dreams of a future world where access to good health enables people to flourish. We can best live into this vision through growth, innovation, expansion, new markets, and new offerings. We may never see this dream come to full fruition in our lifetimes, but it sets in motion our path for continued and expanding impact on the world.