Business leaders are in the business of making decisions - big ones, small ones, urgent ones - the kind that shape the future of a company. At BNZ’s Growth Sectors team, we’ve had the privilege of working alongside thousands of high-growth business leaders. What consistently emerges among them are the choices leaders make about where to invest time, energy, and capital. This overall effort tends to fall into ten categories. That’s why we developed and released the BNZ Growth Levers Report. The 10 levers profiled within it are not new. In fact, they’ve been quietly showing up in the DNA of high-growth businesses for decades. But what’s new is how we’re encouraging leaders to use them: not as a checklist, but as a strategic lens - one that reveals where your business needs to focus in order to thrive.
The 10 levers: a system, not a set
In the BNZ Growth Levers Report, we highlighted ten levers that work powerfully together as an interconnected ecosystem for growth. We also asked 1,000 business customers which levers contributed most to their past success - and which they believe will be most important in the next three to five years[1].
Top three levers to date:
- Customer Focus (49%)
- Operational Efficiency (38%)
- People & Culture (35%)
Top three looking ahead:
- Customer Focus (41%)
- Operational Efficiency (39%)
- Strategy & Business Model (32%)
While it’s interesting to note that the same levers are largely attributed to success both past and future, every individual business is different and so the real insight is this: the businesses that grow best don’t simply pull every lever. They focus better to weight their efforts among the levers. And here’s the challenge I’d like to pose to every business leader: Are you aligning your resources, time, attention, and investment relative to the levers that will actually drive your future growth?
From gut feel to growth formula
A common trap for leaders is to apply the most attention to the squeakiest wheel. That’s not a strategy; it’s survival mode. A true growth mindset is intentional. It requires making hard calls and focusing disproportionately on what will matter most.
Imagine assigning a percentage impact to each lever based on your growth goals. If for example Strategy & Business Model (as a growth lever) will likely be responsible for 30% of your growth over the next three years, are you devoting 30% of your leadership time, funding, and energy to it? If not, why not?
It’s worth mentioning here that Professional Advisors (one of the ten levers) can assist in helping to determine the priorities and in the delivery of specific, focused work at an expert level. For any business it’s near impossible to hold all the skills needed to succeed in-house, all the time. For smaller businesses, advisors are a particularly important supplement. At BNZ we connect over 1,000 of our small to medium customers with the BNZ Growth Academy, offering a series of strategic growth workshops run by leading strategy experts. Interested businesses can apply online here.
Rank, focus, execute
Here’s a simple exercise I encourage every ambitious business leader to undertake:
- Digest the ten levers in the BNZ Growth Levers Report and the insights offered by the New Zealand businesses leaders interviewed
- Rank the ten levers in order of projected impact on your business over the next 3-5 years
- Assign a percentage weight to each - adding up to 100%
- Audit your current resource allocation across time, capital, and talent
- Adjust focus to reflect where growth will actually come from - not just where it’s always been
This is more than just a strategic tool, it’s a way to bring discipline and clarity to decision-making in an environment where leaders are constantly pulled in multiple directions.
Growth is not an accident
The businesses that grow steadily, sustainably, and with purpose don’t stumble into success. They build it, by aligning every decision with their clearest growth priorities. The ten growth levers provide a proven framework to do exactly that.
If you’d like help applying the levers to your business - or to connect with the wide network of specialist advisors available through BNZ - please connect with myself or any member of the BNZ team, our doors are always open.
- Business