The Growth Leader – Volume 15
We hope you’re Planning, Growing & Succeeding!
On 29 September, the RBA hands down a rate call that even the big four banks can’t agree on.
Some are backing a hike. Some are backing a hold. And nobody is backing a cut!
That kind of split is a useful reminder: the businesses that do well from here won’t be the ones waiting for certainty – they’ll be the ones that have already made peace with not having it.
This month we’re exploring three things that, whilst on the surface seem unconnected to one another, actually have a lot in common:
- What’s actually at stake in the RBA’s September decision?
- A sharp piece on the hardest handover in business – life after the founder.
- A book and a two-minute watch for anyone making hard calls with incomplete information.
So, without further ado, let’s hop right into it…
The Rate Call Everyone’s Watching
Inflation eased to 3.5% in the year to July, down from 3.8% the month before, but the measure the RBA actually watches, trimmed mean inflation, held steady at 3.6%, still above its 2-3% target band. That’s the split screen driving the disagreement: headline numbers improving, underlying pressure not moving.
NAB is now forecasting a hike at the September meeting. ANZ and CBA are penciling one in for November instead. Westpac is still betting on a hold through the rest of the year. Three different reads of the same data, from three teams of professional forecasters.
For business owners, the specific outcome on 29 September matters less than the pattern it confirms, i.e., rates are staying higher for longer than most were hoping for twelve months ago.
What does this mean for you? The smart move in our opinion is planning around a range of outcomes rather than a single forecast or event.
For the primary source and full decision history: RBA Cash Rate Decisions
Leading After the Founder
If you’re a family business client, this one’s worth ten minutes.
It’s a sharp piece on what happens when the person whose instincts built the business is no longer the one running it, and why so many handovers stumble not on strategy, but on the succession, i.e., trying to lead exactly like their predecessor did.
The core argument that the authors make is that a founder’s authority came from having built the thing, whereas a successor’s authority has to come from somewhere else entirely – and that the businesses that navigate this well are the ones that name that shift early, rather than pretending nothing has changed.
The Book Worth Your Next Flight
Ben Horowitz’s The Hard Thing About Hard Things doesn’t pretend business is a solvable equation. It’s a blunt, occasionally funny account of running a company through the decisions with no good options – layoffs, near-bankruptcy, firing a friend – all written by someone who’s actually done it rather than theorised about it.
It’s not a framework book. Far from it. Rather, it’s a reminder that most of the hardest calls in business were never going to feel comfortable, and that’s not a sign you’re doing it wrong.
Too many business owners are waiting for external conditions to improve. Interest rates, Government policy, consumer confidence, and so on, but the best businesses we know don’t wait.
They improve themselves. And that is why they continue to outperform.
Worth Two Minutes
Ogilvy’s Rory Sutherland has a short, pointed clip on the double standard at the heart of most business spending: buy the team a round of coffees and someone wants a cost-benefit case; commit six or seven figures to a new system or platform, and it sails through with barely a question.
Questions Worth Discussing Around Your Board Table
✅ If rates move again in September, what’s our plan? And if they don’t, does anything actually change?
✅ Where in the business is a decision being avoided because the information isn’t perfect yet?
✅ If leadership changed hands tomorrow, what would our successor need to know that isn’t written down anywhere?
✅ What’s one big-ticket decision we made recently that got less scrutiny than it deserved?
🚦Business Strength Assessment🚦
The questions above – and plenty more – are exactly what we work through with our Board of Advice clients every quarter.
Rate calls, budget cycles, succession pressure, none of it waits for a convenient time.
The businesses that come out ahead are the ones that have already pressure-tested their plan. If you’d like a second set of eyes on yours, we’d love to help.
Book a Strategic Business Review here.
No obligation. No cost. Just a genuine one-on-one conversation.
We’ll finish where we started – yesterday’s logic is comfortable precisely because it’s familiar, not because it still fits.
What would today’s logic have you do differently?
Until next time, keep Planning, Growing & Succeeding!
Let’s build a future you can look forward to. Call us on (07) 3875 9888 or visit www.4front.net.au to get started today.