In a meeting this week, I noted that when it comes to growth strategies, most health and human service organizations have difficulty replicating successful programs with solid performance and margins. (For more on strategies for growth in a turbulent market, check out this session—From Survival To Sustainability: Creating A Winning Strategy In An Unstable Market—led by my colleagues at OPEN MINDS.) In fact, service line replication (and referral generation for existing profitable programs) should be the easiest path to increased revenue.

Why the difficulties? Most health and human service organizations are not structured for continuous growth. That was the focus of the recent article—The Eight Core Principles of Strategic Innovation. The bottom line: there are organizational competencies—discovery, incubation, and…