There’s an old business saying that goes, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.”

For others, this might mean achieving growth by any means possible. For us, of course, that’s not the goal. But it’s an important lesson to internalize: driving growth is essential to being able to continue doing our important work. That relentless focus is what’s enabled us to have the impact and success we’ve had so far, and continuing to find ways to grow is how we’ll unlock our next era—and thrive well into the future. 

As our leadership outlined at GGL 2025, we're approaching our growth strategy in a way that leverages our past successes and turns them into assets for the future. 

First, we're focused on landing new customers. To achieve this, we're diving deeper into our core verticals and exploring promising new ones too.

Second, we’re thinking about expansion. Our bread and butter has always been demonstrating the value we bring to our customers and partners through return on investment (ROI). But now we have new products to offer even more. That includes Guild Global, which presents an opportunity to serve approximately 2 million eligible employees. And Guild Local, which guides employees step-by-step through nearby education and licensure training programs, while helping employers fill critical roles and build stronger local talent pipelines. And it includes crafting collaborative learning experiences just like the Academy you’re in right now.

Last but not least, we're actively thinking about how to use our resources to invest in our future.  That means developing new solutions as well as making strategic acquisitions when they make sense. We have a (more than) comfortable amount of cash in the bank, so we're well-positioned to put that money to good use, but we aren’t relying on that to primarily fuel our growth. It’s more a sign that we’re on the right track to keep doing what we do well.

That being said: we’ve come a long way, but we also have a lot of room to grow. That will only happen when all of us understand the role each of us play in driving growth at Guild. This Field Manual takes a look at what that means for each of us and the big plays we’re making as a business to set ourselves up for success now, in our next 10 years, and beyond.

Key Questions Posed by this Field Manual:

• What is Guild’s growth vision? 

• What are the strategic initiatives we are focusing on to drive growth this year?

• What is outside-in thinking, and how does it help drive growth?

• What are the cultural markers of growth?

Flip through the following slideshow for a reminder of how we’re thinking about what it means to drive growth and which initiatives we’re focusing on this year. If you’d like to publicly comment or ask a question, click the “conversation bubble” icon to start a discussion. The “notepad” icon will allow you to leave yourself a private note only you can see. You can also use the “star” icon to favorite this (or any individual piece of content from this Program).

“If you’re not growing, you’re dying.” That’s how we started this Field Manual. But when we talk about growth, what we’re really talking about is change: in a way, growth is simply change oriented in a certain direction. That’s why growth can’t be mindless, and our goal is always to be intentional and strategic with how and where we grow, especially as we face larger questions about what kind of company we are and want to be. In this video, Terrence Cummings, Former Chief Opportunity Officer, shares his frame for understanding these big choices we face and the opportunities that come with them.

Part of driving growth is taking on an outside-in mindset, where we put our customers and learners at the center of what we do. But unlocking our next era of growth is also about looking internally at how we operate. That’s not just processes and ways of working. It’s also cultural and interpersonal. In this video, Alana Brandes, Chief People Officer, and Chandler “CK” Koglmeier, Senior Vice President, Product Growth, discuss how they’re thinking about this moment of organizational transformation and the ways that we can promote a culture of high performance from within.

Driving the growth we need at the scale of our ambitions is not something we will accomplish individually or even as teams. It will only come from all of us working together and in concert to own and produce collective results. But what are the group dynamics we need to foster to achieve our lofty goals? And what are the signs from inside the organization that will let us know we’re on the right path?

According to the Center for Creative Leadership, three crucial interconnected elements stand out: Direction, Alignment and Commitment. But here at Guild, we’d like to add another: Purpose. These factors don't just stimulate growth—they serve as clear indicators of whether we’re functioning in ways conducive to growth, creating a reinforcing feedback loop. Here’s a little more about what these look like (and where things break down when they’re absent or weak).

Purpose: A strong shared sense of purpose creates a sense of energy, motivation and urgency. It helps tie our daily activities to the deeper, meaningful impact of our work far beyond the financial returns. It can act as a guiding beacon, inspiring each of us, shaping organizational culture, and reinforcing direction, alignment and commitment. All of us may have different parts of our work that feel personally meaningful. But without a shared sense that what we’re doing really matters, organizational resilience, adaptability, innovation and performance will diminish.

Direction: When an organization has clear direction, all members share a common understanding of what success looks like and what they collectively aim to achieve. Weak direction results in ambiguity, diffused efforts, and competing priorities, all of which undermine growth. Conversely, strong direction ensures resources and efforts are consistently focused on strategic objectives, helping us feel like we’re all actually working toward a shared ambition (and actually enabling us to).

Alignment: Weak alignment fragments efforts, leading to inefficiency, redundancy, and overlooked opportunities. Strong alignment ensures that different teams and roles within the business coordinate effectively, making sure we’re capitalizing on individual and team strengths. Workflows are harmonized, efforts complement rather than duplicate each other, and everyone understands how their specific contributions fit into the broader objectives. (Sound familiar? This Program is strongly focused on driving alignment).

Commitment: Low commitment leads to individuals prioritizing personal gains over collective goals, harming group cohesion and impairing long-term growth. Collaboration becomes a means to individual ends, not an intrinsically valued tool for achieving collective success. High levels of commitment reflect an environment where individuals and teams feel deeply responsible for the organization’s success and trust that others feel the same. Members take pride in supporting and relying on each other, particularly in challenging periods.

Though these four elements are often discussed independently, it is important to note that these growth outcomes (and drivers) are interrelated. Efforts to improve one often positively impact the others in the process—and when one area is weak or missing, it can bring down the others too.