All companies need to grow profitably in order to succeed. Yet only one out of nine companies sustain profitable growth for 10 years or more.

Most of the companies that achieve sustainable growth are run with the Founder’s Mentality®—a set of motivating attitudes and behaviors typically embodied by a bold, ambitious founder. These companies are insurgents, with a mission to serve their customers better than anyone else. For that reason, they are obsessed with the front line. And they have a steadfast owner's mindset—they hate complexity and watch every dollar.

All insurgents start with a strong Founder's Mentality. Their goal is to grow and gain the benefits of size, to become scale insurgents. However, without management intervention, too many allow their Founder's Mentality to fade along the way. They grow but become complex, slow incumbents. Unable to respond nimbly to market changes, they inevitably become struggling bureaucracies.

Chances are you know if your company is a scale insurgent or a struggling bureaucracy. You can feel it. But how real is the distinction? Our recent survey of over 300 large companies found measurable differences between scale insurgents and struggling bureaucracies. Here’s a look at the research: