Not that we don’t favor some kinds of expansion—we do. But we do not embrace unrestrained growth for its own sake. We grow to achieve specific goals, but we are aware that when we choose to increase in size, we may disrupt and endanger treasured qualities. Such concerns do not imply that we must limit development. Economist Herman Daly makes the distinction by explaining that to grow means to increase in size by the assimilation or accretion of materials, while to develop means to expand or realize the potentialities of; to bring to a fuller, greater, or better state. Our planet, he explains, develops over time without growing, while our economy, a subsystem of the finite and nongrowing earth, must eventually adapt to a similar pattern.

If we apply Daly’s insight to our companies and look at the implications of growth and the possibilities for development without expansion, we might conclude that remaining sm

Years ago we were designing a house for new clients. The process was going poorly. Our clients wanted to build at a beautiful spot on top of a hill. We proposed to site the house beside the hilltop, so that the lovely area on top, capped with a huge glacial rock formation with a view, would be preserved. They did not share our perspective. They could not believe, even after we presented convincing photographic evidence, that there was a design solution that would, at once, preserve the cherished hilltop landscape and secure the view they desired. I wondered whether we should end the engagement. Given such a fundamental design disagreement and lack of trust so early in the process, it was doubtful the process would go well. On the other hand, this was a big project, and we were counting on it to provide a significant chunk of our workload for the following year to keep our growing workforce busy.

I brought my partners to the site. We sat on the big rock and considered the problem. They shared my view that our design solution combined responsible use of a beautiful site and sensitivity to our clients’ needs. We understood that if we withdrew from the project at such a late date, we might not be able to replace the work quickly enough and might run short of work sometime the next year.

We mused a bit. The silence was broken by my oldest partner, who speaks bluntly.

“Let’s shitcan it,” he said.

The next day I met with our clients and said, “You know, this isn’t working the way we anticipated. Before we dig the hole deeper, let’s just call it quits.” They were surprised, but after some discussion we agreed that it would be better to part company.

As it turned out, we were lucky, and another opportunity quickly filled the gap. We learned to trust our intuition when it told us not to risk the quality of our work in favor of security and growth.

Until that time we had responded directly to demand. When work was offered, we accepted it, and when the volume of work required expanded capacity, we grew. This was standard operating procedure and we had no reason to question it. It was thrilling to have the opportunity. But this incident helped us contemplate the effects of growth, and we began to wonder whether this passive approach made sense for us. We began to examine growth rigorously and evaluate the benefits and detriments.

It may seem odd for a company with thirty employees to have a self-conscious concern about growth. Maybe it’s why we’ve remained so small. While the potential to expand has been steady, we have scrutinized it carefully.

I do not know, from experience, what it would be like if our company were several times—or many times—larger than it is, so it’s hard to talk with certainty about the value of smallness. But I have suspicions. I suspect that we could not retain many of the qualities we value if we were significantly larger. Many ecologists and a few intrepid economists question whether the planet can sustain a global economy that enjoys perpetual growth, but the idea of individual enterprise growth is rarely challenged in the world of business. I have searched business literature and found surprisingly little that questions the advantages of growth, or that considers optimization of size. In fact, conventional wisdom implies that small businesses are those that just haven’t had greater success yet.

Not that we don’t favor some kinds of expansion—we do. But we do not embrace unrestrained growth for its own sake. We grow to achieve specific goals, but we are aware that when we choose to increase in size, we may disrupt and endanger treasured qualities. Such concerns do not imply that we must limit development. Economist Herman Daly makes the distinction by explaining that to grow means to increase in size by the assimilation or accretion of materials, while to develop means to expand or realize the potentialities of; to bring to a fuller, greater, or better state. Our planet, he explains, develops over time without growing, while our economy, a subsystem of the finite and nongrowing earth, must eventually adapt to a similar pattern.

If we apply Daly’s insight to our companies and look at the implications of growth and the possibilities for development without expansion, we might conclude that remaining sma

I brought my partners to the site. We sat on the big rock and considered the problem. They shared my view that our design solution combined responsible use of a beautiful site and sensitivity to our clients’ needs. We understood that if we withdrew from the project at such a late date, we might not be able to replace the work quickly enough and might run short of work sometime the next year.

We mused a bit. The silence was broken by my oldest partner, who speaks bluntly.

“Let’s shitcan it,” he said.

The next day I met with our clients and said, “You know, this isn’t working the way we anticipated. Before we dig the hole deeper, let’s just call it quits.” They were surprised, but after some discussion we agreed that it would be better to part company.

As it turned out, we were lucky, and another opportunity quickly filled the gap. We learned to trust our intuition when it told us not to risk the quality of our work in favor of security and growth.

Until that time we had responded directly to demand. When work was offered, we accepted it, and when the volume of work required expanded capacity, we grew. This was standard operating procedure and we had no reason to question it. It was thrilling to have the opportunity. But this incident helped us contemplate the effects of growth, and we began to wonder whether this passive approach made sense for us. We began to examine growth rigorously and evaluate the benefits and detriments.

It may seem odd for a company with thirty employees to have a self-conscious concern about growth. Maybe it’s why we’ve remained so small. While the potential to expand has been steady, we have scrutinized it carefully.

I do not know, from experience, what it would be like if our company were several times—or many times—larger than it is, so it’s hard to talk with certainty about the value of smallness. But I have suspicions. I suspect that we could not retain many of the qualities we value if we were significantly larger. Many ecologists and a few intrepid economists question whether the planet can sustain a global economy that enjoys perpetual growth, but the idea of individual enterprise growth is rarely challenged in the world of business. I have searched business literature and found surprisingly little that questions the advantages of growth, or that considers optimization of size. In fact, conventional wisdom implies that small businesses are those that just haven’t had greater success yet.

Not that we don’t favor some kinds of expansion—we do. But we do not embrace unrestrained growth for its own sake. We grow to achieve specific goals, but we are aware that when we choose to increase in size, we may disrupt and endanger treasured qualities. Such concerns do not imply that we must limit development. Economist Herman Daly makes the distinction by explaining that to grow means to increase in size by the assimilation or accretion of materials, while to develop means to expand or realize the potentialities of; to bring to a fuller, greater, or better state. Our planet, he explains, develops over time without growing, while our economy, a subsystem of the finite and nongrowing earth, must eventually adapt to a similar pattern.

If we apply Daly’s insight to our companies and look at the implications of growth and the possibilities for development without expansion, we might conclude that remaining sm

We mused a bit. The silence was broken by my oldest partner, who speaks bluntly.

“Let’s shitcan it,” he said.

The next day I met with our clients and said, “You know, this isn’t working the way we anticipated. Before we dig the hole deeper, let’s just call it quits.” They were surprised, but after some discussion we agreed that it would be better to part company.

As it turned out, we were lucky, and another opportunity quickly filled the gap. We learned to trust our intuition when it told us not to risk the quality of our work in favor of security and growth.

Until that time we had responded directly to demand. When work was offered, we accepted it, and when the volume of work required expanded capacity, we grew. This was standard operating procedure and we had no reason to question it. It was thrilling to have the opportunity. But this incident helped us contemplate the effects of growth, and we began to wonder whether this passive approach made sense for us. We began to examine growth rigorously and evaluate the benefits and detriments.

It may seem odd for a company with thirty employees to have a self-conscious concern about growth. Maybe it’s why we’ve remained so small. While the potential to expand has been steady, we have scrutinized it carefully.

I do not know, from experience, what it would be like if our company were several times—or many times—larger than it is, so it’s hard to talk with certainty about the value of smallness. But I have suspicions. I suspect that we could not retain many of the qualities we value if we were significantly larger. Many ecologists and a few intrepid economists question whether the planet can sustain a global economy that enjoys perpetual growth, but the idea of individual enterprise growth is rarely challenged in the world of business. I have searched business literature and found surprisingly little that questions the advantages of growth, or that considers optimization of size. In fact, conventional wisdom implies that small businesses are those that just haven’t had greater success yet.

Not that we don’t favor some kinds of expansion—we do. But we do not embrace unrestrained growth for its own sake. We grow to achieve specific goals, but we are aware that when we choose to increase in size, we may disrupt and endanger treasured qualities. Such concerns do not imply that we must limit development. Economist Herman Daly makes the distinction by explaining that to grow means to increase in size by the assimilation or accretion of materials, while to develop means to expand or realize the potentialities of; to bring to a fuller, greater, or better state. Our planet, he explains, develops over time without growing, while our economy, a subsystem of the finite and nongrowing earth, must eventually adapt to a similar pattern.

If we apply Daly’s insight to our companies and look at the implications of growth and the possibilities for development without expansion, we might conclude that remaining sm

It may seem odd for a company with thirty employees to have a self-conscious concern about growth. Maybe it’s why we’ve remained so small. While the potential to expand has been steady, we have scrutinized it carefully.

I do not know, from experience, what it would be like if our company were several times—or many times—larger than it is, so it’s hard to talk with certainty about the value of smallness. But I have suspicions. I suspect that we could not retain many of the qualities we value if we were significantly larger. Many ecologists and a few intrepid economists question whether the planet can sustain a global economy that enjoys perpetual growth, but the idea of individual enterprise growth is rarely challenged in the world of business. I have searched business literature and found surprisingly little that questions the advantages of growth, or that considers optimization of size. In fact, conventional wisdom implies that small businesses are those that just haven’t had greater success yet.

Not that we don’t favor some kinds of expansion—we do. But we do not embrace unrestrained growth for its own sake. We grow to achieve specific goals, but we are aware that when we choose to increase in size, we may disrupt and endanger treasured qualities. Such concerns do not imply that we must limit development. Economist Herman Daly makes the distinction by explaining that to grow means to increase in size by the assimilation or accretion of materials, while to develop means to expand or realize the potentialities of; to bring to a fuller, greater, or better state. Our planet, he explains, develops over time without growing, while our economy, a subsystem of the finite and nongrowing earth, must eventually adapt to a similar pattern.

If we apply Daly’s insight to our companies and look at the implications of growth and the possibilities for development without expansion, we might conclude that remaining sm

Not that we don’t favor some kinds of expansion—we do. But we do not embrace unrestrained growth for its own sake. We grow to achieve specific goals, but we are aware that when we choose to increase in size, we may disrupt and endanger treasured qualities. Such concerns do not imply that we must limit development. Economist Herman Daly makes the distinction by explaining that to grow means to increase in size by the assimilation or accretion of materials, while to develop means to expand or realize the potentialities of; to bring to a fuller, greater, or better state. Our planet, he explains, develops over time without growing, while our economy, a subsystem of the finite and nongrowing earth, must eventually adapt to a similar pattern.

If we apply Daly’s insight to our companies and look at the implications of growth and the possibilities for development without expansion, we might conclude that remaining small, manageable, and familial has concrete value.

One of the few proponents I have found for limiting business growth is Jamie Walters, the author of a book called Big Vision, Small Business. She compares the concept to precious jewels: “It’s more a matter of polishing a gem and perfecting its facets, if you will, than of acquiring an ever- expanding number of gems regardless of quality or despite the fact that they might be permanently depleting the mine.”2

The apparent lack of questioning about the nature and benefits of business growth, however, may simply indicate that the literature lags behind a changing conventional wisdom. In the lead article in a recent issue of Inc. magazine titled “America’s Favorite Hometown Businesses,” the magazine’s editor-in-chief, George Gendron, says:

Wherever I go these days I run into founders who say that getting big fast is not a part of their business plan. They care about financial performance, but they’re equally devoted to building a company that promotes personal and professional development, that fosters close relationships with their community, and that gives them pride and satisfaction they haven’t been able to find elsewhere. . . . What they lack is business legitimacy. There’s absolutely no reinforcement for such thinking in the mainstream culture, and precious few role models for founders who choose such a path.

There is intense debate within the movement for socially responsible business about a parallel growth-related issue: how to keep control of socially responsible businesses as they grow, and how to keep their original values intact. Scale is a critical issue. Many companies that start off with a mission and find early success feel that they must go public to finance expansion. Once they do, they are vulnerable to buyouts by larger companies and subject to corporate law that requires a publicly held company to prioritize profits for shareholders. The takeover of Ben and Jerry’s by Unilever is the most well-known example, but there are countless others. Many small natural and organic food companies, like Stonyfield Farm, Odwalla, and Cascadian Farm—which have been emblematic of independent, live-your-beliefs-no-matter-the-consequences commerce—are now owned by the likes of Coca-Cola, Groupe Danone, and General Mills. The extent to which their freedom to embed their values in their company and their brand may be compromised by their growth is a question.

Faced with such issues, some companies have taken a different approach. Seventh Generation, the Vermont purveyor of environmentally friendly household products, went public in 1993 but saw where that path was leading and was in a position six years later to begin to buy back its stock. The company returned to private ownership and is now charting its own destiny. Patagonia, a pathbreaking environmentally and socially responsible company, has always been privately and very closely held, so when they decided to make a costly shift to organic cotton to satisfy their mission, they were free to take the plunge.

There are no outside investors and no non-employee board members at South Mountain. Each owner is an employee. We decide what kind of business ours will be. The decisions are partly economic and partly philosophical, and the people making them have well-aligned interests. Our considerations have led us to believe that if our business practice is not governed by an unquestioned growth imperative, we will have greater flexibility and freedom and the character of the business will better match our aspirations.

I am not suggesting that every workplace should be modest in scale. An unquestioning attachment to smallness seems as careless as an equivalent affinity for unconsidered expansion. In our case we believe that excessive growth may narrow our horizons and limit good things like invention, personal fulfillment, and the overall quality of our workplace and our products. Most people I talk to want these good things in their work but find it hard to resist the tug of other forces more persistent. Too often we tend to grow for increased profits rathe