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The Slow Growth is Smart Growth Manifesto

July 28th, 2009 by Lauren · 13 Comments

I’ve been ask­ing myself lately whether there is a com­mon set of val­ues that is shared by the var­i­ous cre­ative, values-driven entre­pre­neurs I know and admire. Some­times it seems dif­fi­cult even to agree on a def­i­n­i­tion or label under which we can unite: Some of us con­sider our­selves grass­roots busi­nesses; oth­ers go by “small & spe­cial”; I also iden­tify with the term “cre­ative entre­pre­neur,” while oth­ers might unite under the flags of social ven­ture or social entre­pre­neur­ship. Each of these labels comes with a set of asso­ci­a­tions, but rather than try­ing to find the right name for who we are, I find myself won­der­ing if we might be bet­ter served by focus­ing on the val­ues we share.

One of the key val­ues Emira and I share is our belief in grad­ual, sus­tain­able growth — we’ve both seen great busi­nesses implode as a result of too-rapid, com­pul­sive growth, and feel that our culture’s addic­tion to faster, big­ger every­thing is one of the major prob­lems we need to address on both local and global lev­els. So I’ve termed this “The Slow Growth is Smart Growth Manifesto.”

This is my attempt at writ­ing down some of the val­ues I hold dear, and that we have heard from the many inspir­ing small busi­ness own­ers we have had the plea­sure of meet­ing. I’m sure I will miss some­thing fun­da­men­tal, or gloss over an impor­tant detail, so my hope is that you will take this in the first-draft spirit in which I’ve writ­ten it, and com­ment, cri­tique, and remix it as you see fit.

The Slow Growth is Smart Growth Manifesto

Big­ger is not inher­ently bet­ter. Small can be beau­ti­ful, and growth comes in many forms. Pos­i­tive growth is prompted by demand for bet­ter prod­ucts & ser­vices — and doesn’t com­pro­mise our best val­ues, our local com­mu­ni­ties or our environment.

There is a dif­fer­ence between ambi­tion and greed. Ambi­tion dri­ves us to be extra­or­di­nary, reach higher, and do out­stand­ing work. Greed is the byprod­uct of a scarcity men­tal­ity that tells us our gains must come at the expense of others.

Risk has to be afford­able. We keep our debts to a min­i­mum, and do the most we can with the resources avail­able to us. We cel­e­brate cre­ative boot­strap­ping, and reject the wide­spread, glo­ri­fied image of the high-stakes, winner-take-all entrepreneur.

Mean­ing­ful work makes for a more mean­ing­ful life. We love what we do, and are pas­sion­ate about cre­at­ing stuff that makes our cus­tomers’ lives richer, eas­ier, and happier.

Good work deserves to be well com­pen­sated. We believe in pay­ing our­selves and our staff enough to live well and give back to our com­mu­ni­ties — and in tak­ing time away from work to recharge our bod­ies, minds and spirits.

How we spend our busi­nesses’ money mat­ters. As busi­ness own­ers we have the power to dis­trib­ute the money we gen­er­ate as we see fit; and we use this oppor­tu­nity to nur­ture more smart growth through con­scious spend­ing and invest­ing in things that align with our values.

Crafts­man­ship never goes out of style. Qual­ity goods, skill­ful exe­cu­tion, and life­long devel­op­ment of spe­cial­ized skills are a recipe for proud and happy staff, no-bullshit mar­ket­ing, and healthy pric­ing — all of which are ben­e­fi­cial to our busi­nesses and our customers.

Quiet is just fine. Recog­ni­tion is nice, but not essen­tial. We would rather qui­etly turn a healthy profit doing what we love than engage in piss­ing con­tests over gross rev­enues, merg­ers & acqui­si­tions, or becom­ing the next hot-shit, picture-all-over-the-business-pages CEO.

Healthy work­places are pro­duc­tive work­places. At Raised Eye­brow, we like to go home at 5 o’clock and hon­our our days off. We aim for warm, con­struc­tive rela­tion­ships with our col­leagues and cus­tomers. And we keep a gen­er­ous sup­ply tea and choco­late on hand. Every­one has their own def­i­n­i­tion of a pos­i­tive work envi­ron­ment, but when we estab­lish cre­ative col­lab­o­ra­tion, hon­est com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and rea­son­able hours of work as the norm, we pro­mote the well-being of work­ers, our fam­i­lies, and our envi­ron­ment as well as our businesses.

Define suc­cess on your own terms. We cre­ate con­scious, inte­grated mod­els for what suc­cess looks like, rather than rely­ing on tired, inher­ited stereo­types and trap­pings of “the good life.” We are not defined by our work alone.

Focus on what you do best. There is a lot to be said for say­ing no. None of us can be all things to all people.

Niches and the long tail are on our side. There is enough to go around. When we build alliances with other niche busi­nesses we cre­ate ris­ing tides that lift all boats.

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Tags: Entrepreneurial Inspiration · Thoughts

13 responses so far ↓

  • 1 gord // Jul 28, 2009 at 9:12 am

    Well said Lau­ren. Lots of res­o­nance there. It makes me won­der when i read your post how these val­ues have come to be shared by firms like ours? What con­di­tions were required to afford small firms that feel this way? I used to think we were unique in hold­ing these val­ues, but they seem increas­ingly more com­monly held. Some­thing in the van­cou­ver water? The time spent at the top of the hill?

    Great post.

  • 2 Eric Karjaluoto // Jul 28, 2009 at 9:19 am

    Nice post–a sen­ti­ment that I believe is shared by an increas­ing num­ber of peo­ple. Thanks for writ­ing it! :-)

  • 3 Liz Parker // Jul 28, 2009 at 11:08 am

    Lau­ren — lovely post. I iden­tify very, very strongly with what you wrote. MOST things in life worth devel­op­ing per­haps should do so at a slow pace. Your small busi­ness, your friend­ships, rela­tion­ships, career, edu­ca­tion, diet plan, spir­i­tu­al­ity, work­out regime, prac­tis­ing your musi­cal instrument…all of these things are seri­ous, worth­while things that need TIME to develop, grow, and evolve.

    I define suc­cess not by the trap­pings (ie, mate­r­ial goods, although shoes is another story) but by mak­ing enough to save and being happy with my career. I con­tinue mak­ing this my goal because ulti­mately, work­ing for your­self is THE way to go. xo

  • 4 Brenda // Jul 28, 2009 at 2:04 pm

    Per­fect — just what I needed to read today. My motto has been “slow and steady” since open­ing my busi­ness last year. Time and time again, I’ve watched the Next Hot Thing burn out and fiz­zle away, through lack of infra­struc­ture to han­dle overnight “suc­cess.” But I do find myself falling into the trap of think­ing that I must have more sales than I’m able to com­fort­ably han­dle in order to be suc­cess­ful. So thank you. Just what I needed to hear.

  • 5 links for 2009-07-29 | Lorissa Shepstone // Jul 29, 2009 at 8:08 am

    […] The Slow Growth is Smart Growth Man­i­festo YES! (tags: business) […]

  • 6 links for 2009-08-05 < meanderings // Aug 5, 2009 at 5:16 am

    […] » The Slow Growth is Smart Growth Man­i­festo — The Boss of You — For women who run busi­nesses. “We would rather qui­etly turn a healthy profit doing what we love than engage in piss­ing con­tests over gross rev­enues, merg­ers & acqui­si­tions, or becom­ing the next hot-shit, picture-all-over-the-business-pages CEO.” […]

  • 7 Karen Sloan // Aug 5, 2009 at 4:02 pm

    Each and every point you made is in itself excel­lent advice.
    Won­der­ful blog, by the way!

  • 8 Madeleine Shaw // Aug 6, 2009 at 10:06 pm

    ITA!!! Look at plants and peo­ple — how do they (opti­mally, organ­i­cally) grow? At their own, healthy pace. The relent­less push for accel­er­a­tion and hyper-maturity is coun­ter­pro­duc­tive for every­thing it touches, busi­ness, peo­ple and plants included.

  • 9 Things I’ve liked: August 4th < meanderings // Aug 12, 2009 at 12:19 pm

    […] » The Slow Growth is Smart Growth Man­i­festo — The Boss of You — For women who run … – “We would rather qui­etly turn a healthy profit doing what we love than engage in piss­ing con­tests over gross rev­enues, merg­ers & acqui­si­tions, or becom­ing the next hot-shit, picture-all-over-the-business-pages CEO.” […]

  • 10 Linda Smith // Aug 13, 2009 at 7:55 pm

    “Slow and steady…” I love that sen­ti­ment. I’ve always felt that oper­at­ing at too high a speed causes missed oppor­tu­ni­ties, over­looked cus­tomer ser­vice and even pos­si­ble shoddy crafts­man­ship. I think that the old say­ing, “If some­thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing well,” applies here.

  • 11 kerin rose // Aug 28, 2009 at 4:16 pm

    I have printed this out and pasted it above my work­bench as a man­i­festo of sorts.…when you have a small busi­ness, it is so very easy to get caught up in what you THINK you should be doing.

    I love your abun­dance theory!

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  • 13 Becca // Jan 1, 2010 at 8:13 pm

    Thank you! As a writer with a one-year-old busi­ness and a full-time bread bak­ing job, I’ve had no choice but to grow my busi­ness slowly, and some­times I fear that its mel­low pace will even­tu­ally grind to a halt. This is an encour­ag­ing reminder that slow is sus­tain­able. Yes!

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