What Causes a Plateau?
Certainly, shifting economic winds can slow the growth of a company that had previously been on fire. My 30+ years of experience as a growth strategy consultant has taught me that 90% of the time flat business is a matter of management issues and internal dynamics. The organization has plateau’d! One of the first steps in “blasting past a plateau” is to assess the underlying causes. The initial inclination is to look at shifts in the economy, the impact of competition, customer purchasing patterns and problems within distribution channels to find causes for a plateau. However, it is important for a Division President not to camouflage organizational causes by becoming caught up in the quest for external data. Frankly, in my experience plateaus are most often created by management issues rather than external causes. Plateaus are most often a matter of organization dynamics, a loss of psychic energy and/or an inability of the executive to face transformational change. The organization wa
