Escaping the Growth Curse

1 ◼ The Growth Conundrum

Crises in corporate governance come in many shapes and sizes. Regardless of whether they are triggered by weak risk management practices, failing strategies, or outright fraud, the root cause of many of these governance troubles is ultimately the same—stalling growth. And as companies mature, this type of slowdown in growth will be a fact of life.

Yet stalling growth seems to be anathema to most CEOs and executive managers. Otherwise, how do you explain why they continue to commit to delivering unrealistic short-term growth—by which we mean bottom-line, net income growth—in the face of what they know to be challenging underlying conditions? Why do corporate leaders in large mature companies seem intent on squeezing every ...