Selective Growth

In your quest for personal or organisational growth, be careful not to fall prey to selective growth.

Selective growth occurs when we only choose to grow and strengthen in areas that we are comfortable in, areas we are strong in or areas we are interested in. We sometimes pick the areas that offer little resistance.

Selective growth is sly because it makes one feel as if one is committing to growth, but in reality, it causes imbalanced growth. This leads to stagnation, regression and even disillusionment.

Growth must be both balanced and comprehensive.

It is no good to grow remarkably in one area while fully neglecting another equally important area.

You can see where unbalanced growth has occurred when an individual’s weakness is able to overshadow their strength.

In other words, when someone brilliant in one area has that brilliance negated or overshadowed by their shortcomings in another, sometimes-unrelated area, then you must know that there was selective growth.

For instance, I often come across people who may be very skilled in their specific discipline of work but are unskilled in managing their time.

In these instances, their technical skills will be overlooked because they have not grown in a seemingly unrelated area.
To ensure balanced growth, you must grow both vertically and laterally.

Vertical growth is when you deepen your skills within a specific area while lateral growth is widening the areas in which you are skilled.

In other words, vertical growth requires you to get better in existing areas while lateral growth requires you to identify and grow in new areas.

I suggest you take stock of all the areas in which your professional and personal life require competence, and conduct a self-audit of how deep (vertical) and how wide (lateral) you are growing.

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