Think of the biggest and best meals you look forward to most each year. I’m sure a lot of us think of common meals like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or the big neighborhood BBQ during 4th of July. These are memorable meals that we think of for days, even weeks, as we build up to them. And after we enjoy the meal, we feel so satisfied…maybe a little too satisfied. Like we couldn’t eat another meal for a whole week.
And yet, despite how much we love and look forward to these meals each year, we cannot survive on these alone. We would starve if we didn’t eat anything between them. We need to eat meals to sustain our health, strength, and wellness every day between those big, glorified ones.
Well, the same goes for our development as leaders. We look forward to the major developmental opportunities that come only a couple times a year – the flashy conference, an incredible season with a mentor or a coach – but these alone are not enough. We need to feed our developmental appetites daily between the big opportunities to remain healthy, productive, and intentional as leaders.
We need to understand and tap into the power of both incremental growth and transformational growth. So, let’s explore both in today’s episode.
Thanks for joining us. I’m so glad you’re here. Now, let’s get into today’s topic.
I’m Josh, creator of 3x5 Leadership, and welcome to the 3x5 Leadership podcast, where we champion intentional leaders who create significant impacts – in business, our work, at home, and especially in others’ lives. In this show, we share simple, practical strategies to help us live, lead, and learn more intentionally. Again, thanks for joining us today.
So, let’s start by understanding both incremental growth and transformational growth – what they are and how they are different.
Incremental growth constitutes the small, routine activities that we engage in to achieve 1% improvement that, when done diligently and with consistency, compounds to create noteworthy growth over time. It’s like compounding interest – if we invest one dollar a day with 1% daily interest, we walk away with over 3,700 dollars at the end of the year. It’s not a big daily investment, but it builds over time so that the total sum of our growth becomes more than what we merely invested each day.
Incremental growth is not flashy and often feels boring, mundane, and insignificant. But it’s important. It’s a lot like trying to become a runner or become stronger. One big run or one single hours-long weightlifting session alone will not make us a runner or enduringly stronger. Instead, it’s the weeks, months, and even years’ worth of consistent running and weightlifting that will get us there.
Here are a couple of examples of what incremental growth efforts can look like. It can be a daily reading habit, where we simply read 10 pages a day. It can be a sustained investment into our learning, where we use helpful newsletters, podcasts, articles, and videos like TED to open us up to new ideas and ways of thinking. It can be a commitment to reflection, where we dedicate time each week to deliberately think and make sense of things. It can also be personal goals or habits to be more intentional at work, like by listening more and talking less, like expressing gratitude more often, running better meetings, or facilitating better collaboration within our team.
None of these lead to an immediate, drastic transformation. However, when sustained over days, weeks, and years, they do lead to improved performance, more intentional leadership, and bigger impacts.
Now, transformational growth, on the other hand, are activities or events that lead to a dramatic 10x growth. It can create a near immediate transformation in behavior and impact. This type of growth tends to include the sexy, exciting things that are often surrounded by a lot of energy, effort, and resources.
Things that can lead to transformational growth are activities like attending a powerful conference or workshop. It can occur when we take on a new role at work with increased responsibility and impact. Heck, it can be a complete transition to a new job, a new company, or even a new industry.
Transformational growth can occur when we enjoy a special season of concentrated development with a mentor or coach. It can be a season of focused education too. I consider my year of graduate studies on organizational psychology almost a decade ago as a transformational growth experience. It gave me both the education and the inspiration to become a more equipped and thoughtful leader.
Transformational growth can also be when we use something called a BHAG, which stands for big, hairy, audacious goal and comes from famed organizational development author Jim Collins, who wrote books like Good to Great and Built to Last. A BHAG is a significant stretch goal that likely scares us and requires a complete rewiring of our habits, lifestyle, or leadership. But commitment to and achievement of a BHAG produces transformative, 10x growth.
Now that we understand each type of growth and the differences between them, let’s be clear about a couple important lessons we must consider when trying to apply them. First, we need to understand that neither type of growth is better or best. Both are necessary. We need both to give us a complete and holistic approach to development. Transformational growth opportunities give us energy and momentum to keep seeking to create meaningful impacts in our work. But the incremental growth is the food we need to keep us fed between those big events. Incremental growth alone is unmotivating, dull, and hard to stay motivated with. We will starve if we wait for transformational growth alone. We must value and invest in both types of growth as leaders.
Second, we should seek opportunities for transformational growth, absolutely. But those tend to be dependent on external factors, resources, and opportunities given to us – all which tend to be out of our control. Our boss might send us to a conference or give us a coach for a while. We might be offered a new job. We may be given resources to achieve a BHAG. So, while a lot of conditions necessary for transformational growth may be out of our control, we can control our incremental growth. So, we are responsible for our incremental growth and need to take ownership of it. We should establish and sustain our developmental habits to stay fed throughout the year.
Third and finally, we need to employ this growth philosophy as leaders who are responsible for others’ growth as well. We’ve talked about this growth for self-development up to this point, which is crucial, yes. But as leaders, we are also responsible for others’ development too. Thus, we need to ensure that we create or provide transformational growth opportunities for our people – sending them to a spectacular event, giving them a promotion, facilitating a coach or a mentor. In addition to that, though, we also need to encourage their incremental growth too. We do that through our own personal example. We do that by providing resources, bringing energy to their efforts, and celebrating them for committing to it. So, make sure we are nurturing incremental and transformational growth for our people as well, and not just worrying about ourselves.
Now, as we consider this leader growth philosophy, here are a few parting questions:
One, what do we currently do for our incremental growth? As we capture and consolidate those habits, what do we see? Is that enough? Is it sufficient? Or should we…could we…do a little more? What’s one additional habit that we could consider adding to our growth and learning routine this week? It could be as simple as listening to an audiobook or podcast one commute this week instead of listening to music.
Two, do we have some sort of transformational growth opportunity scheduled on the calendar that we can look forward to? If so, what are we doing to prepare for it to ensure we maximize the developmental impact of it? If not, what can we do to have one to look forward to? Can we do something ourselves, maybe propose an opportunity to our boss, apply for something like a new role, or sign up for some sort of leadership-focused workshop at work?
Finally, when was the last transformational growth opportunity that our people were able to enjoy? If it’s been a while, can we look to shape something for them in the not-too-distant future? What can we do to equip, encourage, and support their growth journeys as well?
So, I hope you go into this week a bit more intentional about growth opportunities, both incremental and transformational…both for yourself and for those you lead.
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So, thanks for joining us for today’s episode! And, more importantly, thanks for your commitment to show up every day and lead with care and intentionality. It certainly is making an impact…and it matters.
Now, until next episode, friends, please take care and lead well.
