Everyone’s talking shite. I’m just breathing it in.

Growth isn’t decks. It isn’t awards. It isn’t the latest LinkedIn buzzword someone thinks sounds clever. Growth is people. Visionary people. Edith Penrose nailed it in The Theory of the Growth of the Firm: the single biggest limiter on a company’s growth is leadership. Not strategy. Not processes. Leadership. Without vision at the top, even the smartest teams and brightest ideas stall. Quietly. Insidiously. Everything else is theatre.

Client Paralysis. Agency Decay.

Agencies are addicted to ideas. New-from-new. Pitch adrenaline. But here’s the kicker: none of it matters if your clients can’t keep up. A client organisation without leadership that can see the next step, take risks, or invest? That’s a wall. Ideas smash into it. Revenue stalls. Everyone claps at the PowerPoint and pretends it’s progress. It isn’t. It’s shit.

Agency vision is useless without client leadership capable of acting on it. Client leadership without agency vision? Equally inert. Growth doesn’t happen in isolation—it happens in the messy overlap, where the agency pushes forward and client leaders have the capacity and courage to follow.

Theatre Over Substance. Metrics Over Meaning.

And yet, most agencies are lost in their own bullshit. Ego-driven meetings. Scoreboards that celebrate nods, smiles, and hollow pats on the back. Internal glory contests disguised as KPIs. All while the customer—the actual arbiter of growth—is invisible.

Real leaders get it. They understand that growth isn’t a solo act. You can’t just churn out brilliant ideas and hope the client catches up. Growth requires a loop: agency vision feeding client execution, client leadership enabling agency growth. Anything else? Noise. Total waste of time.

Fear Follows. Vision Leads.

Clients resist. Not growth—it’s change that terrifies them. Change is immutable, unavoidable, and by definition required for growth. And yet, institutionalised behaviour makes people cling to safety. Heads stay down. Ideas die in inboxes. Careers are “protected.” Jobs are “safeguarded.” Leaders are needed to explain vision, to guide, to mitigate fear, to get people to move anyway. Without that, even the smartest ideas rot quietly while everyone pretends progress is happening.

Courage Leads. Growth Follows.

Call it “agency-client convergence” if you want. Call it common sense. Most people forgot it while chasing awards, synergy targets, and the illusion of control. The real limiter? Leadership. The ability to act, to stretch, to invest, to see beyond the day-to-day.

So next time someone lectures about “growth hacks” or “retention strategies,” remember Penrose: growth isn’t a tactic. It’s a relationship. And like any relationship, it depends on vision, courage, and leadership willing to run both sides of the equation.

Vision Wins. Always.

Agency theatre is fun. Ego games are fun. But guess what? Vision wins. Every. Single. Time.

– Tom Kite.