I've been busy supporting High Growth businesses from across the West Midlands over the past couple of months. Academics have researched the characteristics of High Growth firms for decades and to date there are no hard and fast rules on what constitutes a High Growth business. Here are a few observations I've made:

They want to learn: they recognise that they don't know it all. There is little arrogance, they are humble about their achievements and constantly strive to do better. They listen to as many people as possible to inform their decisions and judgment.

Their eye is on the prize: they are driven by the future and more often than not have planned their exit from day one.

They can't do it alone: they recognise that although they got the business to where it is today they are not necessarily the people to get it to where it needs to be tomorrow. They recruit the people and develop the systems and processes that enable the business to be managed and grown without their involvement.

They set the pace: one of the most notable characteristics is that High Growth business set the pace; you don't have to push them along. In between meetings and phone calls they have listened and done stuff. It may be that we talked about restructuring a team - go back a week later and its done! It's not what you say but what you do that counts!