Bigger Isn't Always Better

A big business is a successful business, or so goes contemporary thinking. In Bigger Isn't Always Better, Robert M. Tomasko, discusses his belief that growth does not necessarily mean getting bigger. He believes that growth is moving forward, making progress. It is the ability to generate effective action and to take what is best about a business and nurture it. Not everyone can do this. It takes someone with a different mindset-someone who has a discomfort with the status quo and who can see a better goal to aim for or a better way to do things. In his book, Tomasko spells out the characteristics necessary to grow a business. It is difficult to think about growth without thinking about getting bigger. Growth in business is often represented as a graph with key indicators like sales, profits, assets or stock price rising over time. Conventional wisdom says the steeper slope, the better. Selling more products, hiring more people, opening more facilities, generating bigger profits and increasing stock price are all associated with growth. In fact, today, increasing the stock price, or shareholder value, is considered the number one positive indicator of growth. Equating growth with expansion has gotten out of hand. Businesses that are growing often do experience expansion as a by-product of growth, but the author believes that "when expansion is substituted for growth, means have become confused with ends." Size, scope, and profitability are often the results of growth but they are not the driving force behind it. Tomasko states, "As a business grows in size, fewer and fewer of its employees have a direct line of sight to the company's customers and competitors. Market early warnings are missed, responsiveness slackens, more agile competitors prevail, and business expansion ultimately slows."