One on One with The Growth Strategy Company's CEO Wayne Simmons

Wayne Simmons and Keary Crawford are passionate about entrepreneurship, and helping small companies realize their growth goals. To that end, they started The Growth Strategy Company in 2010. Much to their surprise, large and middle-market companies soon began knocking on their door, looking to tap their expertise and bring the same kind of growth innovation typically reserved for smaller companies to their firms. The pair is no strangers to entrepreneurship, previously they started Icor Partners, which was named one of our Small Jewels in 2007. When they sold the company in 2010, it afforded them the opportunity to work where their true passion lay: helping companies realize sustainable growth. "The demand for business growth is relentless. We are focused on helping companies better measure, visualize analyze and act on the critical information related to business growth," says Crawford. Consulting One on One sat down with Simmons, who is CEO of the firm, about the myths of growth, the "outmoded" business consulting model, and how large companies can feel entrepreneurial and pursue growth just like smaller companies.

Consulting: What are some ways companies can position themselves for sustainable revenue growth?

Simmons: We have a very strong point of view about that. I think it's around this idea of "Growth Thinking". You hear about systems thinking, design thinking—they're pretty prevalent within the corporate lexicon right now. We've come up with this idea called Growth Thinking. Growth Thinking is about entrepreneurship. It's about business innovation and growth strategy and building their organization around those elements. That counters to what we see as the dominant force now, which is around operational excellence. Companies are really good at the operational side of the equation and now shifting to the growth and innovation side of the equation we believe Growth Thinking is the way to do that.