“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell”, a famous quote from Edward Abey was the first spark to write this text.

During my 10+ years in the corporate world I have been trying to understand top-down strategic goals such as “we need to grow our CAGR by x% this year”.

I have always heard I must grow my career, my financial income, my assets. Sky is the limit. Nevertheless I realised early in life that yes, I want to make progress, but not without a purpose.

Reading the book Drive – The surprising truth about what motivates us by Daniel H. Pink confirms the first perceptions of the corporate context I experienced.

It was clear to me that I was not mainly driven by the carrot, that is, the money. Of course it is good to earn enough to take this issue off the table. But just the carrot wasn’t fulfilling to me. Instead it was a mix of mastery, autonomy and purpose.

The last one, purpose, can be defined as follows: “The desire to do something that has meaning and is important.”

The next sentence is actually what I intend to debate here: “Businesses that only focus on profits without valuing purpose will end up with poor customer service and unhappy employees”.

It is legitimate to ask your employer why they want to grow. It is your right to ask your government for the reason to destroy yet another hectare of forest. It is powerful to question yourself about what progress means to your life and to the environment around you.

There are different layers when talking about growth for growth’s sake. They all lead me to the following two reflections: Why and for whom? What are the limits?

In this article we will focus on the corporative layer, that is, you as an employee.

The soon to be launched book The Calm Company by Jason Fried, founder of the tech company Basecamp, was an eye-opener to me.

“Not only does crazy not work, but its genesis — an unhealthy obsession with rapid growth — is equally corrupt. Towering, unrealistic expectations drag people down. (…) No growth-at-all-costs. No constant, churning false busyness. No ego-driven decisions. No keeping up with the Joneses Corporation. No hair on fire. And yet we’ve been profitable 68 straight quarters, 17 straight years. We’ve kept our company intentionally small — we believe small is a key to calm.”

I am not naive to believe that all organisations can adapt and transform into a calm company. But I do believe that corporations, instead of seeking growth for its own sake, can start investigating how else they can generate value for all stakeholders. Employees and shareholders in the same degree of relevance.

Graeme Dreans in his article “Growth for growth’s sake: a recipe for potential disaster” mentions three aspects that a company should exploit further:

“Operations: becoming the lowest-cost, highest-quality competitor in your industry.

Organization: breaking through growth barriers in your organization and building a growth culture.

Strategic marketing: using the 4Ps of marketing—product, place, price and promotion—to meet customer needs profitably”

Apple, McDonald’s, Hyatt, Philip Morris; just to cite few organisations which successfully put this philosophy into practice.

McDonald’s, for instance, after deciding to move away from its growth-at-all-costs strategy, started to focus on foundation for excellence. The first full year of implementation of this idea, 2006, was the most successful one, followed by 2007 in which its share price rose from a low of $16 to a high of $63.

There are a number of evidences that growth is not the only possible way to survive. Neither shareholders nor capitalism are to blame for unreasonable growth.

Organizations treating their employees as cogs in the machine of growth will have a hard time keeping them engaged and motivated. A money-making corporation where they enter in the morning and leave in the evening feeling empty. Just a means to an end.

We need more audacious calm companies willing to experiment. And more people challenging the limits and reasons. More purposeful goals.

We deserve more means and ways to purposely unleash human potential at its best.