Introduction

In a world flooded with ideas, the differentiator often isn’t who has the biggest or boldest—it’s who has the systems to make them real. Growth isn’t a one-time event. It’s a process, a structure, and a set of choices repeated over time. It’s what happens when strategy meets creativity, when ambition meets alignment and when innovation meets execution. Growth doesn’t usually come from isolated flashes of brilliance—it comes from systems that can harness that brilliance and channel it into consistent performance.

Established organisations should look beyond short-term wins and focus on building something that lasts. Because it’s the ‘growth system’ that sustains growth. It ensures that great ideas don’t just make an impact once—they create lasting value, over and over again.

Ideas excite, systems endure

The word ‘idea’ is flexible—much like ‘strategy’. Both can take many forms, but too often, what’s pitched to organisations as an ‘idea’ is really just a campaign or product concept dressed up as something bigger. I’ve sat through countless presentations like that. And I’ll be honest—if the idea was bold enough, I got excited, just like everyone else. Like a moth to a flame, I didn’t initially stop to ask how it strategically fit or assess its role as part of a much larger, much more important objective.

But looking back, the most successful chapters of my career weren’t defined by ideas. They were driven by systems—insight-backed, commercially grounded, and repeatable frameworks that created momentum and compounding value as the strategy was refined and execution quality improved. Ideas should be part of the system—not pretend to be the system itself.

What is a growth system?

‘Strategy’—whether commercial, customer or marketing—is the what. The system is the organisation-wide how. How do you ensure that the rigor and insight from strategy is activated and executed consistently? How do you create the right operating conditions to ensure that ideas fit within a broader growth system, supported by commercial logic and cross-functional clarity?

Like any system, considerable thought must go into all the interoperable components. That includes the decision-making processes that support the system, the team structures and incentives that drive behaviour and the governance that ensures accountability and adaptability. The best growth systems are not only intelligent—they’re practical. They’re built to survive complexity and navigate ambiguity.

Ideas built to endure

We use a simple filter to evaluate ideas to ensure they have the same attributes as growth systems:

• How is the idea distinctive? (This is often the easy part.)
• How is the idea scalable?
• How is the idea repeatable?
• How is the idea profitable?

There’s no shortage of service businesses built around delivering ideas—and to be clear, they serve an important purpose. Big ideas help organisations break through, attract attention, and differentiate in crowded markets. But in my experience, if those ideas aren’t anchored within a broader system for growth, they tend to deliver short-lived results. They might grab attention or win awards (yay!)—but without a clear path to scale or long-term value, their impact fades fast.

Why is a growth system critical?

While ideas generate attention, growth systems generate focus. They clarify priorities. They connect creative thinking to commercial objectives. They evolve over time and create compounding value. Rather than being dependent on a single campaign or product launch, the organisation gains a foundation it can build on again and again - and strengthens, week on week.

A growth system turns ambition into reality. It connects bold thinking to day-to-day decision-making. And it does so in a way that creates alignment, momentum and measurable outcomes. That’s what sets businesses with a growth system apart—and why we believe it’s the most valuable thing an organisation can build if it wants to grow not just this year, but every year after.

At Three Are One, we intentionally avoid the common temptation to jump straight to the next idea without first understanding—or defining—the broader growth system. Ideas are, without question, one of the most energising and enjoyable parts of what we do. They’re exciting, creative, and full of potential. But we believe that ideas alone are not enough.

Before we allow ourselves to pursue them, we ask a more fundamental question: what system will this idea live within, and does that system have the structure to scale, sustain and support meaningful impact over time? Our discipline lies in doing the groundwork first—ensuring that the foundation is clear, the commercial context is understood, the organisational dynamics are accounted for - and the customer strategy is aligned.

In other words, we start by designing the growth system. We map the connections between product, service, technology, and marketing. We identify the levers of scale, the barriers to execution and the rhythms that will allow the business to absorb and act on new thinking. Only once we’re confident that the system is in place—or that we know exactly how to build it—do we move to the next phase: ideas.

And yes, that’s the fun part. But the difference is, when an idea is born inside an established growth system, it doesn’t just make waves—it moves the business forward. It’s no longer just a moment; it becomes part of something enduring.

That’s the standard we hold ourselves to. Because in our view, great ideas should do more than win applause—they should help drive enduring, profitable growth.

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