Escaping the Growth Curse

4 ◼ Broadening the Board’s Mandate

We have seen how easy it is for CEOs and senior managers to be tempted by short-term expediency. A confluence of factors, including the relentless pressure from certain shareholder groups for steady and continuous quarterly growth, the way CEO compensation packages are structured, and the practical challenges of effective strategy making in an increasingly complex environment, can make it difficult for them to make the right choices for the long-term viability of a firm and all its stake-holders. And this becomes even more of a challenge when a firm is facing maturity. At a time when the rate of growth naturally slows, senior management becomes so focused on milking legacy technologies, systems, processes, ...