What Healthy Companies Worry About

Great leaders are always worrying about something. But are you worrying about the right thing?

Based on our firm’s new research, what you worry about may say more about the health of your company than you realize.

And selflessness may be a key to growth.

Our research, conducted in Q1 among business leaders and C-Suite executives across America, asked participants throughout the business lifecycle to share their top concerns.

Leaders in companies experiencing growth were almost uniformly focused on external concerns like competition or changing technology. They also demonstrated high levels of organizational health.

Conversely, decision-makers in slow-growth or commoditized companies worried less about being relevant to their marketplace and more about issues like company leadership and internal communication. They were also more likely to struggle with a loss of focus, paralysis and inconsistency.

It seems that for companies struggling with growth, being less relevant to the marketplace leads to leadership being even less focused on the marketplace; a phenomenon that looks eerily like the beginning of a death spiral.

In short, the more your company is struggling, the more self-centered it may be. Growth is correlated with the ability to address internal issues so that one can focus on external problems. Perspective is everything.

What are you worried about?

You can assess your company’s health using our 60-second self-diagnosis survey.