Pacing for Growth
Why Intelligent Restraint Drives Long-Term Success
Leaders who try to grow a business have to go at the right speed. But most leaders don't get it right. They go too fast or too slow. They act like sprinters when they should be acting like endurance athletes. Companies that cannot grow with the right pace struggle with boom-splat cycles of growth, lack of innovation, stagnation, and disengaged employees.
So how can leaders go at the right speed? Growth expert Alison Eyring, who is also a long-distance runner and triathloner, found the answer in endurance training. It's a concept she calls Intelligent Restraint.
Eyring gets leaders started by showing them how to measure and increase their company's and team's capacity for growth, build the right growth capabilities, and use the right pacing strategies in the same way that athletes prepare for endurance races.
To get results without harming the business or employees, Eyring offers three rules of Intelligent Restraint, some of them a little heretical. For example, she insists that focus is more important than vision because ultimately it's perspiration, not aspiration, that gets you across the finish line. By practicing Intelligent Restraint, you're guaranteed to go the distance over and over again.
Eyring masterfully weaves together physiological and psychological research, in-depth business case studies, examples from real leaders, and practical tools with her own narrative of endurance training. The result for readers is a new mindset and set of practices for growth that is second to none. "
