Growth Optimization

Everything the Guide points you to.

The Growth Optimization Implementation Guide never prints a web address. It prints an ID — G1.2, G4.4.3 — and the ID is on this page. That way the book can stay right for years while what sits behind an ID gets rebuilt, renamed, or replaced.

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Take the assessment first.

The Guide is five chapters, one per stage, and you start at yours rather than at the beginning. The assessment reports four lenses — Intention, Capacity, Credibility and Evidence — and never averages them. Your stage is your lowest lens, not your overall picture.

Thirty-two questions, about nine minutes. Sixteen and about five if nobody reports to you — and that is not a lesser version, it is the half of the instrument your answers can actually carry.

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How to use this page

Find the ID printed beside the exercise you are working on. The first number in an ID is the stage — G3.4.2 is the second movement of Stage Three — so the ID tells you which chapter it came from without a cross-reference table.

Every printable is a clean copy you can print as often as you need, for yourself or for forty people. Print a fresh copy per person and per instance — a worksheet somebody has already filled in is not a worksheet anybody else can use, and these are per-person by design.

They all live in one free library. You give a name and an email once and have every sheet from then on — there is nothing to buy. Your name is never shared with your organization, and you are not added to a mailing list.

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Stage One · Growth Void

Nobody here got better on purpose. The work is entirely about deciding, and none of it waits on anybody else’s budget.

G1.0

Your Four Lens ScoresYour four lens scores written down before anything else is read — and the plot grid, one mark per person per lens, so a team’s spread shows up on one page.

G1.2

The Doubling TestPick a team that is not the leadership team and ask honestly whether they could carry double the complexity in two years. Then mark which answers are a person getting better rather than a person being hired.

G1.4.1

Who Got Better Here On PurposeName the people who have measurably grown, then the third column: what specifically caused it. The blanks are the finding.

G1.4.2

The Assumption GapWhere busyness is being counted as capability — and, beside each assumption, the last time anybody actually checked.

G1.4.3

The Comparison GapThe more-resourced competitor, and the distance that only grows while you wait.

G1.4.4

Where You Actually AreHonest placement on the five stages rather than generous placement. The stage is the lowest lens, not the average.

G1.4.5

Naming the OwnerFrom intention to system. Development with a person’s name against it and a rhythm — not a committee and not a function.

Stage Two · Stated Growth

The plan exists and nothing operates on it. Every sheet here asks for something that happened because of the plan, rather than for the plan.

G2.0

Is Stage One Actually Behind You?Five boxes, each naming the page in Chapter One it came from. Fewer than four, go back — it is the shorter road, not a demotion.

G2.2

Stated or OperatingAsk three people the same question about the plan, separately, and write their answers in their own words. Do not explain the plan first.

G2.4.1

The Growth Formula AuditWillingness · Application · Consistency · Stretching, each scored separately. Missing any one collapses it back into good intentions.

G2.4.2

Where Application BreaksThe training that produced strong feedback scores and no change in daily behavior. What should look different, and who would notice.

G2.4.3

Goal-Conscious or Growth-ConsciousWhether the finish line is the point, or the person you become on the way to it.

G2.4.4

Building the L.E.A.D. Cycle InLearn · Experience · Apply · Develop, each with where it lives in the structure rather than where you hope it happens.

G2.4.5

Assigning the StretchOne person, told why, with a check date in a calendar somebody actually opens. The check date is the whole tick.

Stage Three · Growth Avoidance

Knowledge, plus a reason not to act on it. There is no villain anywhere in this chapter — and the cost is real anyway.

G3.0

Is Stage Two Actually Behind You?Stage Two closes when the plan operates — when somebody can point at a thing that happened because of it.

G3.2

Knowing Isn’t DoingThree things you already know you should be building and have not started, the reason you have been giving in the words it actually gets said in, and how long you have been giving it.

G3.4.1

The Timing GapEvery stage of an organization’s life produces a plausible reason to wait. Name the condition that would make the timing right — a date or an event, not “when things settle.”

G3.4.2

OwnershipOwning outcomes rather than explaining them, and giving one person real, stated choices about how they reach what they are responsible for.

G3.4.3

AttitudeIs growth investment a cost being managed or a choice being made on purpose — and which one do the people underneath you think it is?

G3.4.4

The Four-Question Gut CheckRun a real deferral backward through the four questions, out loud, as a room. Not to relitigate it — to find out what the filter actually was.

G3.4.5

The Invisible RiskWhat waiting is costing, in your own numbers. It will come out wrong low and still be larger than you assumed.

Stage Four · Growth Disconnect

We built it and they have never felt it. Every instrument leadership has is reporting success, so nothing here can be answered from your own desk.

G4.0

Is Stage Three Actually Behind You?Stage Three closes when something started — when a thing is running that was not running before.

G4.2

The Credibility Gap TestTwo columns filled in by two different people. What this organization says publicly, in the actual words, beside what somebody two levels down says is true. The most uncomfortable page in the Guide.

G4.4.1

Preparing OurselvesNine rows scored honestly, with the evidence beside each score. A score with no evidence beside it is a mood.

G4.4.2

Preparing Our LeadersEvery person who leads people in your area, what they were promoted for, and what they have actually been taught about leading people. The last column is the one that changes anything.

G4.4.3

The Three Ordinary TestsWhat you do when nobody is checking · the attitude you carry into a hard week · how you treat people who have no leverage over you. Private, and it should stay private.

G4.4.4

Naming the MomentA beginning, a loss, an uncertain opening, a door to a level you have not reached. Naming it correctly changes the response.

G4.4.5

Non-Negotiables, DatedFour to six things you will not do, each with the pressure named beside it. The date is what separates a value from a rationalization written afterwards.

Stage Five · Growth in Motion

Nothing here is dramatic and all of it compounds. The only stage with no exit — what follows is maintenance, and maintenance has markers rather than exits.

G5.0

Is Stage Four Actually Behind You?The most important back-check in the Guide, and not because Stage Five is the hardest to reach. Because it is by far the easiest to claim.

G5.2

The Week One TestA new hire’s first real week is the most honest test a growth culture has. Take the last person who joined — not the best hire you ever made — and reconstruct it. Then ask them.

G5.4.1

Trust Is the FloorEvery name in your area, and the date of the last real conversation about their development. Plus the same expectation delivered four ways.

G5.4.2

The Six Practices, OwnedRead · listen · think · file · write · lead, each with a name and a rhythm against it rather than a good intention.

G5.4.3

From Lagging to LeadingName the lagging indicators that matter, work back to two or three leading ones, and set a review rhythm that is not annual.

G5.4.4

Bench Depth, Role by RoleCross-training, process that does not live in one head, depth built before the gap. Include at least two roles with no title attached.

G5.4.5

The Two DirectionsA real path for people who want to climb, and an equally real one — with genuine recognition and a genuine ceiling — for people who want to go deep.

Beyond the five stages

Growth does not rise or fall across a whole organization at once. It rises or falls at five specific moments, and in most organizations every one of them runs on instinct. None of these belongs to a single stage.

GT1

Who You HireAre you hiring the finished capability because you cannot build it — and what does that cost you every time?

GT2

Who You PromoteThe strong producer promoted into a role they never wanted. A mismatch dressed up as a reward.

GT3

Who You AddressIs this person underperforming, or were they told once and never shown?

GT4

Who You Do Business WithDoes this work stretch the organization or overwhelm it? The gut check, applied outward.

GT5

What You Do When Somebody LeavesThe cheapest capacity audit anybody will ever run. How many names came to mind, and how fast?

When you would rather measure it than estimate it

Movement One of Stage Five asks you to deliver the same growth expectation four different ways, and an estimate of somebody’s style is enough for every sheet on this page — the Guide never asks for more than that. When you would rather have it measured, Dove Development & Consulting runs the behavioral instrument behind this work, and there is a person there to run it with you: dove-development.net/EffectiveCommunication

The printables

Every sheet above is marked in the library, and all forty are ready now. One free library, one name and email, every sheet from then on — including anything added or revised after the book was printed.