Growth Requires Evaluation

After one year, many organizations hold a performance review. The employee is evaluated: where do you stand today, what have you learned, have you grown, and what are your next development points? That question is logical, but it is incomplete when it is asked in only one direction. An equally relevant counterquestion is: where does the employer stand after one year?

The same evaluation logic applies to entrepreneurship and organizational development. Growth is not a feeling; it is a reality that must be measured honestly. Have you made financial progress? Is your company more resilient, better organized, and strategically sharper? Or are you, after twelve months, still moving in the same circle, with the same problems and the same constant busyness?

Development implies progress. Just as no one expects to remain in kindergarten forever, it is unhealthy to stay stuck in the same phase for years. At some point, a transition is required: to a new structure, a different scale, a more professional way of working. That transition can be uncomfortable, but it is necessary in order to keep growing.

Small tools, such as to-do lists, can help maintain daily direction, but they are never the goal in themselves. The goal is long-term progress. Anyone who cannot honestly say after a year that they are further along than before must be willing to draw conclusions. Sometimes that means adjustment; sometimes it requires a more fundamental choice.

Time is the true currency. You cannot save it - only spend it. The question, therefore, is not how busy you have been, but what that time has produced. Growth emerges when time is consciously invested in development—personally, organizationally, and financially.