A New Lexicon of More

Lucky me…my days are rich with conversations with friends and colleagues from very different worlds: the arts, higher education, philanthropy, business, civic life. The threads and trajectories vary but inevitably we arrive at the same question.

How do we grow?

It is such a basic question. Every organization wants to remain vital. Every leader wants to build momentum, extend impact, attract resources, and prepare for the future. But as soon as the word growth enters the conversation, it settles into a familiar set of meanings.

More revenue. More people. More programs. More space. More visibility. More influence. And in the blink of an eye, we’ve blurred the lines between growth and expansion, making them nearly impossible to distinguish from one another.

When Growth Becomes Expansion
This conflation between growth and expansion is so deeply embedded in our thinking that we rarely pause to examine it. We assume that a healthy organization should get larger, that success should be visible in rising numbers, and that momentum should produce accumulation. We become uneasy when the numbers flatten, and when they decline, we assume something is wrong.

But, really, is more always evidence of growth? And is growth always evidence of progress? The concept of more isn’t inherently the problem. There are moments when more is necessary: more access, more opportunity, more participation, more financial stability. The problem begins when more becomes the only language we have for describing ambition.

How More Became Our Measure
I can easily imagine the origins of this instinct, when having more could mean surviving winter, protecting a family, or securing a future. Scarcity taught us to accumulate. Industrialization turned accumulation into production. Capitalism turned production into performance. Technology then gave us the ability to count almost everything.

We can now measure audiences, impressions, followers, clicks, rankings, attendance, square footage, market share, fundraising totals, and year-over-year increases. What can be counted becomes visible. What becomes visible becomes defensible. And what can be defended begins to look like value. The result is a culture in which standing still feels like falling behind.

This is especially powerful inside institutions where leaders are expected to demonstrate progress through scale. A larger budget appears more consequential than a smaller one. A larger audience suggests greater relevance. A larger footprint signals confidence. More initiatives imply greater energy.

Yet an organization can become larger while becoming less coherent. It can reach more people while mattering less to each of them. It can launch more programs while losing sight of why it exists. It can become more visible and less distinctive at the same time.

In conversation after conversation, I see a peculiar kind of futility in the word more, because it promises satisfaction while continually postponing it. Which leads me to ask, can we, in fact, reimagine more in a way that separates growth from size? Will a new lexicon help? Instead of asking how an organization can become bigger, we might ask how it can become more capable, connected, generous, resilient, curious, useful, or alive?

The Ambition of Enough
And in the pursuit of a new vocabulary, I see great promise and potency in the idea of enough. Tricky subject, to be sure. Enough is often mistaken for complacency, and it can sound like surrender or a retreat from aspiration. But it holds the idea that judgment is present. To know what is enough requires a clear understanding of purpose. Enough revenue to remain independent. Enough scale to do the work well. Enough visibility to reach the people who matter. Enough structure to support the mission without overwhelming it.

In this context, the concept of enough can be an organization’s ballast, preventing growth from becoming compulsive and helping resist the temptation to respond to what’s missing rather than building what’s valuable. It can also create the possibility of choice, allowing a leader to ask whether the next opportunity should be pursued simply because it is available. It allows a board to distinguish between expansion and distraction. It allows an institution to become more selective without becoming less ambitious.

More, in Service of What?
A new lexicon of more won’t abandon vision or deny the legitimate need for resources, reach, and scale. It will simply situate more and enough in healthy (and perpetual) dialogue, challenging us to constantly ask: More of what? More for whom? More in service of what?