Before the Move

Most growth plans can be read as a set of moves. Open a second site. Enter a new country. Launch a new product line. Buy a competitor. Close a business that no longer earns its place. Each move is a decision about where the company goes next.

Choosing the move is strategy, and it belongs to the company: its owners, its board, and the people they trust to decide. This paper does not tell anyone which move to make.

It looks at something that is easier to miss. Many plans that struggle chose a sound direction. What hurt them was a move the company was not yet ready to make: a new market entered while the home operation still needed the founder every day, a company bought before the buyer's own way of deciding could take in a second company, a new product launched before the first one ran without constant attention.

The direction can be right, and the move can still come too early for the company making it.

Every move takes something from the company: attention, people, money and time. And every move asks something of it: a way of working that travels, a decision structure that holds across a larger company, an advantage that does not depend on one person. Those are what this paper is about.

This paper looks at twelve operating conditions around a move: what has to hold before it, what different moves ask while they are being made, and what has to exist afterwards. They are not laws, and they are not a fixed model for examining every company. Not every plan involves all of them. The plan decides which apply, how much each matters, and in what order.

What stays the same is the direction of the question. FEC does not ask whether a move is the right strategy. It asks what the move asks of the company, and whether the company can do it.

Two companion papers look at the company from other sides: Built to Carry, on six parts of a company that growth often puts weight on, and Built in the Wrong Order, on why companies build what they can see first. Read Built in the Wrong Order →

There is an order that often works: make sure the core holds, then make the move, then build what keeps it going. A step taken out of that order usually costs more than the step itself, because every later move is built on top of it. A move made from a core that still depends on the founder takes that dependence into every new market. A company bought before the buyer's own decisions are sound brings the strain into both companies at once.

But that order is not a rule for every company. Sometimes a window closes faster than any company could prepare: a licence that will not be offered again, a competitor about to move first, a market open for a limited time. Waiting for everything to be ready would mean missing the move.

Sometimes a company decides that the window matters more than being fully ready. Then the question changes. The company should know exactly what is not ready, what risk that creates, what has to be built while the move is under way, and what would cause the move to be stopped or reconsidered.

FEC can make that operating reality clear. The company decides whether the opportunity justifies going ahead anyway.

The plan decides the order. The company should know what a move will ask of it before the move is made.

Owners and boards. When a move comes to you for approval, the strategy is only half the question. The other half is what the move will take from the core and what it will ask of the company, and whether those are ready.

Investors. A growth plan is usually a series of moves. Ask which move comes first, what it takes from the core, and whether the company can make it before the next one is funded.

Holding companies. Moves inside a group often draw on the same leaders and shared services. Two companies making moves at the same time can each look ready on their own, and still compete for the same people.

The people running the company. The move is usually decided above you. What it asks of the company is usually delivered by you. Naming those asks early is how you avoid handling them alone.