The Next Level

As most CEOs eventually discover, the process of maintaining long-term corporate growth may be the most difficult professional task they ever face--and one that is far more complicated than almost any other aspect of running their businesses. After studying hundreds of real-life efforts of this type over much of the past decade as director of Inc. magazine's Business Resources Growth Strategy Consulting Group, James B. Wood has developed a systematic approach to implementing successful growth in companies of all types--large or small, public or private, for-profit or non-profit. In The Next Level: Essential Strategies for Achieving Breakthrough Growth, written with Larry Rothstein, Wood reviews the common stages of corporate growth, and presents an interactive Growth Strategy Analysis so readers can assess their companies' own strengths and weaknesses. He then details his five so-called critical Growth Drivers (market intelligence, strategic leadership, clarity of purpose, strategic planning, and internal infrastructure) that just about any company can follow. --Howard Rothman