This concept can apply to a number of activities: work, personal relationships, even you physically. I will stick with how it applies to organizations in this writing.
You read the acronym from the bottom up.
Expand Grow Achieve the Purpose Survive
Survival of the organization should be its first priority. If it does not survive, it has no chance of fulfilling the purpose for which it was created. If it does not survive, growth and expansion are moot. One is reminded of the safety speech that the airline flight attendant gives concerning the air mask: In the event of a cabin depressurization, a mask will fall from a panel above you. Place it on your face (etc.,). If you are traveling with people who need assistance, such as children, make certain you put your own mask on before assisting others. This last portion of the talk reminds you that if you don’t survive, you can’t help others.
Achieve. Remembering why the organization was established in the first place and achieving those goals is secondary only to the survival of the organization. For a stock company, it should be making a profit and returning value to the shareholder. For a mutual insurance company, it might be to provide an open insurance market for its owner/customers.
Growth in this context means organic growth: increasing the activities you currently are performing, adding members or adding policyholders, and similar increases in what the organization is already doing or customers it is already dealing with.
Growth only makes sense if the organization is already attaining its purpose, meeting its goals, and is reasonably assured of survival.
Expansion occurs when the organization takes on new territories, lines or types of business, or other activities outside its current scope of activities. The boundary between “growth” and “expansion” is not so important as the fact that neither should occur until the organization is fully meeting its objectives, and is assured of survival.
Make sure the “survive” tasks are taken care of before going on to the “profit” ones.
Handle the Profit issues before Growth, and only expand when all three are working efficiently.
