This deck presents the IRG Growth Study to a CHRO forum. It frames the question as value extraction or value creation to fuel growth, argues that traditional business growth formulas are lacking, and then works through the seven building blocks with the measured gap between over-performers and under-performers on each.
The study behind it combines more than 750 qualitative interviews with CEOs and CMOs, more than 5,000 quantitative responses across markets and functions, AI analysis of more than 3,500 growth publications, and behavioral analysis of more than three million LinkedIn members. It was updated after COVID struck.
Key findings
- The method is a contrast rather than an average. The study sets the revenue growth of over-performers against that of under-performers to establish what it takes to win.
- Over-performers are far more willing to accept new business models, at 71 percent against 39 percent, and are described as playing chess and checkers simultaneously.
- They are twice as likely to focus on delivering ever-evolving experiences, at 81 percent against 39 percent, and they eliminate friction rather than manage it.
- Their strategic decision-making is more diverse, at 70 percent against 45 percent, and they report far greater competitive agility on organizational change, at 68 percent against 16 percent.
- They are also better connected. The study reports 3.5 times more connections with other functions and 5.5 times more with senior leaders, both horizontally and vertically.
Culture, measured
The culture block is where the CHRO relevance is sharpest, because the deck indexes the words each group uses about itself. On procedures, structure and quality, under-performers index at 146 and over-performers at 62.
The indexes reverse on the other two. Innovation, change and entrepreneurship runs 93 for under-performers against 129 for over-performers. People, teamwork and collaboration runs 75 against 118.
Growth ambition splits the same way. Under-performers put bottom-line profit first, at an index of 130 against 85, while impact on people runs 120 against 76 the other way.
Data, technology and the whole-brained block
The sixth block is about unlocking big data with deep human insights and combining technology with human creativity. Over-performers report a much greater ability to attract whole-brain talent, at 65 percent against 25 percent.
They also put data and analytics at the core of strategic decision-making, at 66 percent against 36 percent, and report higher confidence in conversations with finance about marketing impact, at 84 percent against 65 percent.
The stakeholder shift
The seventh block is humanized growth itself. Pre-COVID the stakeholders in view were customers and capital markets. Post-COVID, colleagues and community joined them, and the deck states the result as a four-part set.
The deck writes it as an equation in which colleague value, customer value, community value and capital market value multiply rather than trade off, with short termism named as the force working against it.
Two external markers are cited: Laurence D. Fink of BlackRock writing that a company must not only deliver financial performance but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society, and the 2019 statement of the US Business Roundtable.
The update after COVID shows the shift in the panel itself. An IRG CMO panel reports a significant move toward more humanized growth, at 78 percent against 4 percent.
Scope and limitations
The deck reports paired figures for over-performers and under-performers without stating the base for each block on the slide. It also notes that the study was updated after COVID, so the figures mix waves of fieldwork.
Source
This page summarises Humanizing Growth: CHRO Forum 2022, by Institute for Real Growth, 2022.