Loud Thinking August 20, 2013 at 04:25PM

3 Ways to Support a Growth Initiative

All too often senior leaders see managing today’s earnings as their main job and don’t spend enough time on the pursuit of long-term growth. It’s important for all executives to nurture “internal start-ups,” clusters within the organization that help deliver both earnings and growth. Here’s how:

Create the conditions.

Make earnings and growth equally important top priorities. Work to remove cultural impediments such as risk aversion and the notion that any kind of failure is bad.

Choose the right team leaders.

Assign your best, most experienced general managers to lead growth initiatives. They have the necessary internal networks and understand the company’s values and culture.

Fund the ventures.

Create funds for financing new ventures separate from the company’s annual budget process. Tie funding to milestones with realistic time frames.

Adapted by HBR from “Six Ways to Sink a Growth Initiative,” by Donald L. Laurie and J. Bruce Harreld.

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