A growing business will always contain things that could be improved.
Website upgrades, training managers, improving the customer experience, sales and operation are all a part of the process.
That does not mean everything deserves attention now.
One of the most important leadership disciplines is establishing strategic priorities for growth.
Your Longest Problem List Is Not Your Strategy
Marcus could easily create a list of 40 weaknesses in his company.
If he gives all 40 equal importance, he has not created a strategy. He has created an organisational anxiety list.
Strategy requires choosing and that means accepting that some legitimate problems will remain unsolved for now.
Find The Constraint, Not The Loudest Complaint
Problems compete for attention based on visibility.
The sales director complains about leads, operations complains about staffing, finance complains about margin, and customers complain about delivery.
The founder complains about being pulled into everything.
Which one is the real problem? Perhaps sales is bringing in unsuitable work because the offer is poorly defined. That work creates operational complexity and complexity damages margin.
Operational problems reach Marcus.
Each symptom looks different but one underlying constraint may be driving several of them.
This is why diagnosis must precede action.
Evaluate Problems Against Three Things
When establishing strategic priorities for growth, I would examine each issue against three dimensions:
Value
How significantly does this issue affect revenue, margin, customer value, risk or competitive strength?
Capacity
How much organisational time, attention or resource is this issue consuming?
Future Constraint
If left unresolved, what important decision or opportunity will this prevent later?
That third question is particularly important. A problem may be manageable today but become extremely expensive at twice the company’s current size.
Look For The Issue With Multiple Consequences
The most consequential constraint often produces symptoms across several areas.
For example, unclear customer targeting might cause:
- Weak conversion
- Excessive customisation
- Difficult delivery
- Poor margins
- Customer dissatisfaction
Fixing the website will not solve that.
Hiring more operations staff will not solve it either.
Clarifying which customers the business intends to serve and what it will deliver to them may improve several outcomes simultaneously.
That is leverage.
Sequence Matters
Imagine a company plans to introduce AI automation but its processes are undocumented.
Its data is inconsistent and team roles are unclear.
Automating immediately may create an expensive new layer of confusion.
The correct sequence might be:
- Simplify the process.
- Clarify ownership.
- Standardise information.
- Then automate.
Same objective. Different sequence.
Now with a far greater likelihood of success.
Ask: What Must Be True First?
This is one of my favourite strategic questions.
If your objective is to double revenue: What must be true first?
Perhaps delivery must become repeatable.
If delivery must become repeatable: What must be true first?
Perhaps the offer must become more standardised.
If the offer must become standardised: What must be true first?
Perhaps leadership must decide which customers and work it will stop accepting.
You have now moved from: “We need to grow sales” to a much more consequential strategic decision.
Fix The Constraint. Then Reassess.
Businesses are dynamic.
Once one constraint is removed, another will emerge and that is normal.
You do not need to perfect every component of the organisation before moving forward. You need to keep identifying what is currently limiting progress and address it in the appropriate sequence.
The best strategic priorities for growth therefore may not produce the longest action plan. They may produce a very short one.
Three important changes completed in the correct order can create more progress than 30 disconnected initiatives.
So when everything seems important, do not ask: “How do we fix all of this?”
Ask: “Which constraint, if removed, would make the greatest difference to what becomes possible next?”
Start there.
