The playbook is subtitled as redefining strategy, structure and leadership capability for driving sustained business growth. It runs in two halves: how to host an IRG summit, and what the research says once people are in the room.
The research position is that overperformers have rejected the old formulas. To deliver sustained top-line growth they are developing a new architecture that delivers for all stakeholders.
Key findings
- The evidence base combines more than five hundred vision interviews, more than fifteen hundred survey respondents across seventy-three markets, analysis of LinkedIn data from three and a half million users, and more than three thousand publications.
- Each building block is presented as the refutation of a myth. Growth is not about winning share from competitors, culture is not fixed in a company’s DNA, and the objective is not simply to boost profitable growth.
- The percentage pairs are labeled: the first score belongs to growth overperformers and the second to underperformers.
- Each block also carries a leadership characteristic. Abundant markets is paired with humble, anticipative organization with empowering, evolving experiences with passionate, and humanized growth with courageous.
- The benchmarking product returns three things for each of the seven blocks: a performance score against the benchmark, a progression checklist, and guidance on the top opportunities.
What a summit is and how it runs
The stated reasons to host a summit are commercial and relational: raising the host’s profile, bringing its companies together, elevating the conversation with chief marketing officers, aligning the host with business growth, and inviting senior prospects.
A worked agenda shows the shape: guests arrive over breakfast, then a half-hour presentation, a twenty minute panel, a section on growth leadership, a plenary discussion, a question and answer session with the chief executive, a launch moment, and networking.
The panels are drawn from serving chief marketing officers and general managers, with a New York panel including leaders from Bank of America, Pepsi Lipton and Samsung, and an Amsterdam panel including Unilever, Randstad and Royal FrieslandCampina.
Designing the room so it stays a conversation
The format is described as a stylized version of a VIP fireside chat, informal but of high quality, and the guiding note is repeated throughout: it is not a performance.
The content rule is strict. There must be an absolute minimum of slide and lectern presentation, and key words and visuals are described as far more impactful than text-heavy slides. Hosts are expected to plant key questions to keep the dialogue moving and to bring named people in the audience into the conversation.
The producer’s job is defined partly as resistance. A strong producer takes feasible requests in their stride and says clearly when a presenter’s demands are heading toward a more formal conference style, protecting the conversational format.
The physical instructions follow from that. No theatre rows and no cabaret round tables, informal cafe furniture instead, no stage for small groups, discreet microphones with handhelds passed between people, lighting that is not gimmicky, and unobtrusive catering with no plastic tableware.
The seven blocks and the myths they break
Abundant markets answers the myth that growth means taking share. Overperformers assess and understand market developments at eighty-five percent against thirty-three, and the winning actions are shifting investment from explaining the past to predicting the future and defining your market so that you hold no more than three percent of it.
Open culture answers the myth that culture is fixed. Underperformers are more defined by procedure, structure and quality, overperformers by innovation, change and entrepreneurship, and the actions are redefining career paths from a linear trajectory to a jungle gym and rewarding intrapreneurship.
Multiple models answers the myth that anything outside the return model gets killed by the spreadsheet. Willingness to accept new business models runs sixty-six percent against thirty-eight, and the actions are ensuring the investment approval process allows for multiple models and participating in start-up platforms.
The anticipative organization answers the myth that agile is about redefining responsibility charts. Competitive agility runs sixty-six percent against fourteen, and the actions are creating multi-disciplinary fit-for-purpose teams for every strategic initiative and pushing accountability down to consumer-facing staff.
Evolving experiences answers the myth that growth is about customer satisfaction. Delivering ever-evolving experiences runs seventy-seven percent against twenty-two, and the actions are measuring and benchmarking your share of experience and making sure every solution has product, service and experience components.
Whole-brained answers the myth that the problem is weak data and analytics. The ability to attract whole-brain talent runs sixty-four percent against twenty-five, and the actions are shifting focus from the what to the so what and the now what, and creating whole-brain teams of equals.
Humanized growth answers the myth about profitable growth being the objective. More underperformers name bottom line profit as their top ambition, at thirty-six percent against twenty-five, while more overperformers name impact on people, at thirty-five against twenty. The actions are articulating ambition in terms of impact on people and the world, and linking business growth to people growth measures and incentives.
From one architecture to another
The new architecture is described as human-centric, recognizing and addressing all stakeholders’ needs, future-proofing organizations, unleashing technology with creativity, unlocking data with human insights, and delivering ever-evolving experiences.
The shift is set out as four moves. From a responsibility chart straitjacket to freedom in a framework with fit-for-purpose teams. From rigid brand identity bibles to continuous results-based course correction. From individual performance measures to results-based team measures. From a top-down line of command to empowerment of consumer-facing colleagues.
The benchmarking service runs the same three stages used elsewhere in IRG material: understand the gap through quantitative benchmarking, stakeholder interviews and desk research, define the so what by aligning on priorities and building a roadmap, and action the now what by deploying tangible solutions.
IRG describes itself as a not-for-profit and independent institute co-founded by WPP, Kantar, Google, Facebook, Spencer Stuart, LinkedIn, Oxford’s Said Business School and the NYU School of Professional Studies, with participants receiving a certificate in Real Growth Leadership on completion.
Scope and limitations
This is an internal playbook produced when the initiative was being brought to market through a commercial partner, and its summit guidance is explicitly about engaging clients. One slide is an unfilled placeholder awaiting text, and the benchmark scores shown are sample values.
Source
This page summarises Institute for Real Growth Playbook, by Institute for Real Growth, 2019.