The objective of the paper is to fill a gap in our understanding of what makes certain small firms grow while others do not by exploring the relation between managerial behavior and small firm growth. This has been done by direct observation of the owner‐managers in twelve small manufacturing firms (six slow‐growing and six fast‐growing). Methodologically the project draws on the extensive research that has been conducted within the area of mana‐ gerial work. We have used the method of structured observation as developed by Henry Mintzberg as the primary tool for data collection. Data consists of approximately 330 hours of observation and about 2460 activities have been observed and classified according to their primary purpose.The framework used to analyze the data comes from established conceptualizations of “ma‐ nagerial behavior”. More specifically, the two groups of managers have been compared in terms of; how the managers’ allocate their time; with whom they interact; with whom do they communicate; and the roles they shoulder in their firms.What is both striking and surprising in the empirical material is that there are only minor dif‐ ferences between the groups of growing and slow‐growing firms. These differences, however, all point in the same direction and confirm one suspicion following our observations of the two groups which is that the hectic and turbulent work situation characterizing the situation of the slow‐growing managers were not present in the growing firms. There might not seem to be such a big difference between the two groups, but trivial questions consumes much of the time for managers in slow‐growing firms which isn’t the case for managers in fast‐ growing firms. This gives the managers in fast‐growing firms more time to focus on other work than the daily operations and problems of the firm, which consumes much of the man‐ agers time in slow‐growing firms