Most often, the story about growth – be it an individual’s or of an organization – is laced with points pertaining to focus. What you focus is what you get – management thinkers would say. A quick look at what is happening around us would reveal that growth is probably a direct result of continued focus on raising the bar. Not necessarily a result of one’s focus on growth. Sprinter Usain Bolt said, “My aim is to win championships and continue to stay on top of the world,” when asked about his aim. Being the world record holder, one would expect him to be succinct - I want to stay number one. He did not but added that “the guys at the top are great athletes and training hard to get better all the time." Have we ever heard batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar saying his focus is on staying in the team? Or accumulating centuries? He would always say that his focus is on ‘hitting (middling) the ball well.’
Many of the Indian IT pure plays would invariably communicate their intention to be like IBM, Accenture etc or better still brag about ‘beating them (MNCs) in their own game.’ No doubt the Indian companies are doing well in the intensely competitive market. The question is what should be their focus? Beating the MNCs or winning more deals and hence recording growth? The stakeholders would certainly want these companies to stay focused on winning more deals. No wonder some of these companies are posting sluggish growth, and restructuring with the hope of reviving growth.
One company that appears to be differentiating themselves in this regard and hence posting record growth q-o-q is Cognizant. According to the company’s CEO, “the two key measures and most important operating metrics when I look at the business are customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction. Scale is a natural outcome of that and our growth rate has been a natural outcome of the fact that we have a differentiated model that allows us to keep our customers very happy on one side and employees happy on the other side. That results in industry leading growth, but we don't chase growth for the sake of growth.”
The lesson here is simple. Be it an individual or an organization – don’t focus on growth, focus on the value add that can be extended and the result will be growth.
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