Vertical Growth

INTRODUCTIONThe vertical growth imperative

‘The snake that cannot shed its skin must perish.’

Friedrich Nietzsche

Sheila Frame, President of the Americas for the pharmaceutical company Amryt Pharma, shared with me her past experience of work days spent putting out one fire after another. There were times when she struggled with proactively setting an agenda and creating a plan for her team, and when her team members didn't really know what was expected of them, she would step in and solve problems for them.

She became aware of this self-defeating pattern and what was creating it only when she went through a vertical growth training program. As she explained to me, ‘I started to realise that my resistance to planning, goal setting and proactivity came from my wanting to keep my options open, because I like to be in the action. I’m a master at managing a crisis. It’s an adrenaline rush for me and I love it. So why would I be more proactive when it would cut off my opportunity to be in the centre of all the action?’

Until Sheila experienced this moment of self-awareness, goal setting or proactive planning skills were of little value to her. She would simply revert to her default behaviour pattern. She was driven by her unconscious need for the short-term gratification of managing crises, which took precedence over her aspiration to create a more strategic focus in her team.

Sheila first needed to see this pattern to realise how she was contributing to the team dysfunction. This ...