Seven in 10 business leaders say their primary competitive strategy for the next three years is to respond quickly to changing business, customer, or market needs.
The finding comes from Deloitte’s 2026 Global Human Capital Trends, based on more than 9,000 respondents across 76 countries, including 1,761 executives.
In the latest DesignRush Podcast, I spoke with Ark Entertainment Media Founder Lisa Robbin Young about the decisions behind the company’s growth, from finding customer demand and retaining members to delegation and high-stakes decision-making.
Young says speaking with people outside her usual circle led her to a need other entrepreneurs shared. The Incubator that followed became a major revenue source.
“You can only grow so much, so far, so fast when it's just you,” Young tells DesignRush.
Young keeps returning to one operating constraint: how much work and decision-making can remain with one person as a company grows?
Watch the full episode now on YouTube or listen on Spotify.
Who Is Lisa Robbin Young?
Lisa Robbin Young is the Founder and Keynote Speaker at Ark Entertainment Media, which she started in 1993. Her work has included consulting, education, publishing, media, memberships, and speaking. She currently focuses on high-stakes business decisions and company resilience.
Customer Conversations Created a Major Revenue Source
Young says a coach encouraged her to talk to people in the business world after years of taking a ‘head-down, do-it-yourself’ approach.
Those conversations exposed a need she shared with other entrepreneurs, which led to the Incubator.
The program provided backend support, coaching, and consulting to creative entrepreneurs, giving owners support with the company while they focused on CEO-level work.
“It was more than fifty percent of our revenue that year. And so that really helped us to double the growth of the organization at that time,” Young says.
Young says the Incubator ran for seven years.
Its commercial model also tied Ark’s payment to client results.
“So if they weren't making money, we weren't making money.”
That gave Ark a direct financial interest in whether clients generated revenue from the work.
For CEOs considering a new revenue source: speak with customers, identify a repeated problem, and test whether that problem can support a paid offer.
Why Around 80% of Members Stayed
One of Ark’s memberships retained roughly 80% of its members. Young ties that retention to belonging and whether members were getting what they needed.
“People stayed because they felt like there was a place for them.”
Customer needs were another part of the reason.
“And they were getting what they needed, right? When you don't get what you need, you're out the door. When you're getting what you need, that helps,” Young adds.
Young later moved the membership from an annual subscription to month-to-month access, allowing members to leave at any time.
The change pushed her to stay more engaged with the community and avoid creating unnecessary pressure for members.
For a related look at retention, DesignRush’s 2026 report on client retention examines why clients continue spending when they can connect the relationship to business results.
Delegation Starts With Clear Decision Boundaries
The capacity issue also appeared inside Ark.
Young describes her tendency to keep control as a “Vulcan death grip,” adding that founders can hand work to other people while continuing to guide the result.
“And I can still guide them, and I can still give them direction, and I can slowly release my Vulcan death grip of control over things and trust them. Trust is earned, right?”
That trust still needs rules.
“You have to create guardrails. You have to give people guidelines,” Young adds.
Team members can take on leadership responsibility as trust grows and their decision range becomes clear.
Delegation saves CEO time when the person receiving the work knows which decisions they can make independently.
A 2026 DesignRush interview on agency partnerships also examines clear ownership and decision rights when several people share responsibility for commercial work.
Find the First Decision Before Solving the Rest
Young also applies the same focus on responsibility to high-stakes decisions.
“And so decision making becomes even more important because no decision costs us money, the wrong decision costs us money.”
Her current approach starts with what she calls the “first domino;” the issue that needs attention before other work can proceed.
“This is what we need to do. This is our first domino that we need to set up in order for everything else to fall properly.”
The question for CEOs dealing with several problems at once, therefore, is:
Which decision affects what the company can do next?
The Cost of Founder Dependence
After more than three decades running Ark, Young’s final reflection returns to the amount of work and control she kept with herself.
“I should have asked for help sooner, but I also think that it would have given the business an opportunity to breathe a little more on its own.”
Across the conversation, three checks emerge for founders:
- Demand: Are customers raising the same problem often enough to support a paid offer?
- Retention: Are customers continuing to get what they need?
- Delegation: Can team members make routine decisions inside clear boundaries?
So how much of the company can move forward without every important decision returning to the founder?
Companies seeking outside expertise on strategy, operations, or growth can compare business consulting firms evaluated by DesignRush based on expertise, client feedback, and service focus.
