I read a great post by Tim Ferris called Why Grow? and Other Wisdom from 37Signals the other day and it got me to thinking. Tim talked about growth and how it always gets confused with an increase in size, whether employees, turnover, office space, number of locations etc. I completely agree. Growth is about what is right for the business, the owner, the managers, the leaders, the market, the circumstances, the customers etc
It then occurred to me that business growth is a lot like growing a bonsai tree.
If you are not familiar with Bonsai growing, it is the art of growing miniature replicas of trees in containers. It originated in China and Japan hundreds of years. It does not involve growing genetic miniatures of existing trees but rather growing small trees from regular stock and seeds. The Bonsai method uses different techniques like pruning, potting and repotting, root reduction, defoliation, leaf-snipping and grafting to produce small trees that are replicas of their full-sized, mature, free cousins in nature.
How can we apply this to business? Here’s my take on why there are lessons from this ancient discipline for business growth:
Take a look at your business and ask yourself: What are you creating?
Send me your thoughts and plans for your business.
Thanks for reading.
Thanks to JCardinal18 for the photo
5 Comments
The Ancient Art of Bonsai Growing and Business Growth @ http://bit.ly/cGd5wF
The Ancient Art of Bonsai Growing and Business Growth http://bit.ly/a8TbOI
I love this Adrian! What a great anology for business.
It’s really opened up my eyes to how I’d like my business to be when I make that step. Perfectly formed.
Hi Ben,
Brilliant! So glad that you liked the post and pleased that it’s stimulated you to think about how YOU want your business to be when you get started.
Adrian
RT @6aliens: The Ancient Art of Bonsai Growing and Business Growth http://bit.ly/a8TbOI