Following up on May's "Achieving Growth" article in CU Times, let's take a look at successful ways to move from merely growing your business to achieving sustainable, strategic growth.

Many organizations, including those outside the financial services vertical, discover it's often not difficult to achieve growth in the short term. However, business success isn't just a "today" thing. It needs to extend well into the future to be truly worthwhile. Often, short-term growth gives way to unforeseen losses, executive turnover or the search for a liquidity event in order to get out before the risk being undertaken comes to fruition.

In a recent conversation with Power Financial Credit Union President/CEO Allan Prindle, a quote he brought up spurred me to write this article. The quote, from Stanford University Professor Robert Burgelman, was: "The single biggest danger in business and in life, other than outright failure, is to be successful without being resolutely clear about why you are successful in the first place."