Packards Law

Packard’s Law states that “Growth in revenues cannot exceed growth in people who can execute and sustain that growth”. The quote comes from Jim Collins, the law from Hewlett-Packard co-founder David Packard.

Collins cites Packards Law as one of the timeless laws of physics of great companies.

Personally, I have never found a company where the sustainable growth rate of the business exceeds the personal growth rate of the people running the business. That includes you.

There are fundamentally two ways to achieve this. Either develop and grow your people or hire and import higher calibre people.

Which option should you pursue? The answer is both. This is not an either/ or question. Sports teams expend huge amounts of time and effort helping their players become even better, and they are constantly scouting and searching for better talent.

What does your firm do? Typically, we like stability and resist change. It is more comfortable that way, or so we tell ourselves.

So the questions for today are:

• On a scale of 0 to 10 how effective are your development initiatives?
• If you could fire all of your team, how many of them would you enthusiastically rehire? (This is a question from the People decision in Scaling Up)
• To what degree does Packards Law apply to your growing firm?
• What countermeasures have you in play?

If you need any help, reach out

Many successful business owners eventually hit a wall on growth and struggle to climb it alone. When you work with me you get a fresh perspective, a solid plan, and customised coaching so you can grow and scale your business safely and at speed.

To check whether I can help you on that journey https://calendly.com/iankinnery/canweworktogether