Cracking the Growth Code: How Ordinary Managers Become Extraordinary Catalysts

How ordinary managers in any economy
can do extraordinary things to build
sustainable growth engine

The Catalyst speaks to all managers who have ever been handed ambitious growth targets but little guidance on how to hit them. Managers like you who, year in and year out, face “the terror of the plug.” The boss expects you to deliver a daunting revenue target but offers little advice on how to get there. Even worse is “growth gridlock,” when your company won’t support your great ideas until you prove they’re good–which is impossible since you can’t get the proof until you’ve tried them out first. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, you spend your time persuading with PowerPoint presentations instead of pursuing opportunities.

What does it take to overcome such seemingly insurmountable roadblocks? How can you crack the code to discover and pursue new opportunities? How can smart organizations recruit growth leaders, train them, and learn from them instead of getting in their way? These are the questions explored in The Catalyst. Based on years of research, this inspiring book reveals that the most potent drivers of growth are unsung heroes who often go unnoticed: ordinary middle managers who do extraordinary things.

Intrigued by how some people were able to consistently deliver the numbers–despite both internal obstacles and highly challenging conditions in the marketplace–the authors discovered not only how they did it, but also the personal and psychological characteristics of those who succeeded. They distilled the lessons into practical tools, including:

• Turn lemons into lemonade: How what may appear to be flat or dead-end businesses can be turned into growth-oriented enterprises that create cool new products and tap new audiences.
• Get a bigger box: How not to just “think outside the box,” but create a bigger box by being wired for opportunity.
• Get rid of the monkey: Why the real monkey isn’t Corporate on your back, but Corporate in your head.
• It could be staring you right in the face: The hidden secret of growth is not relying only on development of dramatic new products or technological breakthroughs, but finding opportunities already there that are overlooked by the
competition.
• Do It. Now!: Breaking through growth gridlock comes from “learning by doing,” not through detailed analysis and planning.

The Catalyst is for people in the middle looking to free themselves from the shackles of business as usual–and deliver the organic growth that’s demanded of them. But it’s also for CEOs and CFOs who want to release the creativity lying dormant within their businesses.

JEANNE LIEDTKA is a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. Formerly the executive director of the school’s Batten Institute, Jeanne has consulted with a wide variety of organizations and their leaders, from museums to law firms to large corporations, since beginning her career as a strategy consultant for the Boston Consulting Group.

ROBERT ROSEN, chairman and CEO of Healthy Companies International, and an internationally recognized psychologist and business advisor, has interviewed and advised hundreds of CEOs around the world. He is the best-selling author of Just Enough Anxiety, Leading People, Global Literacies, and The Healthy Company.

ROBERT WILTBANK is a partner of Buerk Dale Victor, a growth-stage venture capital fund based in Seattle, Washington, working with dozens of new ventures in a wide variety of industries. He is also a professor of strategic management in the Atkinson Graduate School of Management at Willamette University.