Publications

Studies, playbooks, reports, articles, and practical frameworks from the Institute for Real Growth.

Study

Seven Building Blocks, Presented to Turkey and MENA

The December 2020 MMA presentation of the IRG growth study, with the fullest set of overperformer comparisons and a direct account of what had gone wrong for the

Study

Humanized Growth, and What the CMO Crisis Has to Do With It

The November 2020 presentation to First National Bank: the seven building blocks of growth, the evidence behind each, and a direct account of why the CMO role was

Interview

Purpose Has Been Found and Activated. It Has Not Been Measured.

Jim Stengel sets out purpose in three steps and says the industry has only done two of them. He traces the argument back through Jif, Pampers, and the

Interview

Growth on Four Dimensions: Mars Wrigley’s President on Mutuality, Penetration, and Staying the Course

Andrew Clarke sets out how a private, family-owned business defines growth across four measures, why staying the course beat every other behavior in its own study, and what

Interview

The Film Nobody Was Supposed to See: How Dove’s Positioning Got Through the Room

Sylvia Lagnado on the rough internal film of executives' own daughters, why she asks more people than is comfortable before deciding, and a founder who was glad a

Interview

The Words of the Founder Are Not a Concept Anyone Can Argue With

Antonio Lucio on walking into three companies mid-transition and starting each time in the same place, the four things he says the industry controls outright, and the purpose

Interview

The High Line, and Why a Spreadsheet Never Gets You There

WPP's chief executive on what creative transformation actually buys a client, the three decisions he took early because they were the riskiest, and why a CMO's job is

Interview

Coordinated Agility, and Why Fanta Had Nothing to Say

Coca-Cola's sparkling CMO on interdependency by design rather than goodwill, four ways to take sugar out and the local judgement about which to use, and asking why the

Interview

Welcoming the Unbidden: A Marketer Trained in the Theater on Whole-Brained Work

Michael Diamond went from Oxford to a theater degree to a cable company's marketing department to teaching it. He argues that intellectual curiosity, not a discipline, is what