Understanding the stages of business growth, and how companies progress through these stages, is essential for any entrepreneur hoping to thrive in the chaotic beginnings of starting a company.

When a company has grown to 11 – 19 employees, survival mode is quickly replaced with growth as the top priority. This is called Stage 2, or Ramp Up.

As a Stage Three company (20-34 employees), it’s critical to understand that what has worked in the past may not work any longer.

In a Stage 4 company, comprised of 35 – 57 employees, the changes that occur are exponentially more impactful than anything the company has experienced to date.

With the company size ranging from 58-95 employees, integration between departments is the key to success in Stage 5..

Stage 6 is called the Strategic Stage because the risk of not seeing the larger strategic picture could cause the ‘too little, too late’ syndrome.

Stage 7 is not an easy transformation for a CEO, but a critical one to think about in this largest Stage of Growth.

Standing right in the middle of the convention entry door, index finger pointed directly at my chest, the business owner looked me straight in the eye and told me my ideas on how to manage business growth were rubbish.

After more than 30 years of research and work with over 1,300 CEOs and their companies, I discovered that there is one single choice, like no other, that alters the face of a business forever.

John Harper, CEO of a successful 98 employee manufacturing firm in the Pacific Northwest, woke up one morning to the realization that his company would hit the equivalent of a solid concrete wall going 120 miles an hour in just under 90 days. Disaster was at the door. Why?

Rewilding is an approach to regain the natural balance and vitality in nature’s eco-systems by inserting key missing elements back into a weakening system in order to re-establish a resilience and dynamic order into the system.