When Growth Breaks Culture: The Scaling Trap Founders Miss

We hear from so many business owners who are struggling with high turnover, low morale, and teams that just aren't clicking.

And so often the real problem isn't the product, the service, or the people. It's the culture.

And that's why we would love to bring The Business Fix to your next event or webinar to help transform your team and to push your business forward.

Ready to fix your culture and unlock your team's potential? Visit us at businessfixpodcast.com and click Connect with Us to learn more.

So spring brings growth. Yeah, growth is always good, especially in your business, because nothing— when your business— as your business grows, it's just sunshine and rainbows.

Yeah, nothing ever breaks, ever. It's perfect.

It just grows. It's like the flower in the garden. And the annoyed look on your face, it's priceless. If you're listening, um, put the knife down, Chrissy.

Fine.

Stay tuned. She's the CEO.

He's the marketing and operations guy.

If it's broken, you need the Business Fix. So you're, you're, you're still not on board with it being spring?

No, not, not a chance. Nope, not, not, no. Okay, not pretending. I live in reality.

I'm hopeful, damn it. Okay, I'm, I'm You're just pissed football season's been over for a while. I know.

I'm mad. It's been long enough to be crabby. It's been 6 weeks and I'm crabby. I don't want to deal. It's not okay. I miss it. I don't get to sit on the couch and watch football anymore.

Can you have your husband and son play Tecmo Bowl?

No, it's not the same. I know you keep trying to get that to work. It's not going to work. Okay.

I swear it just works like that.

I mean, the draft is going to be in another month. I'll be happier then. It'll be fine.

Okay. Okay. I still, I think it's hilarious that you're the one that out of the two of us that like, if people looked at us and said, who's the football fan? I don't think they would say you.

No, it's me.

Yeah. No, it's definitely, it's definitely me.

I mean, we'll have the Hall of Fame dinners coming. Like, you really get to go to the Hall of Fame dinner this year. So I'm excited. Oh, no kidding.

Oh, that's very cool.

Yeah.

No, that's very cool.

Going and like, let's see who's Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald. Those are two people that are getting inducted. Sure. Eli Manning got skipped. People are a little upset. I don't really care. So Yeah, that's your sports knowledge for the day.

You're welcome. Let's talk scaling.

Sure.

Let's talk about how that breaks culture.

Okay.

Kind of like what the Browns have decided to do.

Oh, gosh. Yeah, we could do a whole episode about how to mess up your interview process. Oh, the things.

Everything.

All the things.

I heard someone— and this is a while back. This is a couple of months back when it was first announced about the Browns coach. And I know nothing about football at all, but someone said that the Haslams should take on the Costanza effect. There was an episode where George realized that every decision in his life he made was wrong, and therefore the opposite of that decision would be correct.

They really should.

So he started doing everything the opposite, and yeah, I know it ended up turning out good for him. Most, most owners— like, growth is a solution to all problems. Cash flow problems, Grow. Yeah, operational problems grow, uh, HR problems just grow, just grow, um, you'll grow out of it. Um, no, this is not like that bad pair of jeans that your mom got you that you didn't like. No, um, when you add people, when you add clients, you add structure, you create structural— you create cultural friction, you create structural friction, you create layers, um, culture, I don't feel like it breaks because the people changed. It breaks because the foundation that the people are standing on wasn't big enough, wasn't well-built enough to hold those people up. From the HR and like visionary perspective on this, why does a team that like at 15 people is like, or at 5 people is like tight-knit, they're working well, everything's smooth, and you're like, we're just humming, it's time to grow. And suddenly at like 10 or 15 people, this comes off the rails.

Yeah, like, what happened? Who are these people?

It was working so well. Yeah, I've just figured I would do more of it and it would work better.

No, it doesn't. So I would say this is one of those most, most painful surprises for founders, because you look around one day and you're like, we're winning.

Yeah.

And then you're like, why does it feel so hard? Why does it feel less connected? Why don't I like it as much as I used to? And so here's the truth, and I've learned it the hard way, you know, growth doesn't break culture, unprepared growth does. Ah, you gotta prepare. So culture doesn't fall apart because people changed, it falls apart because the structure didn't grow at the same pace as the success, and leaders failed to keep growing themselves. I think I'm going to say this in every podcast that I possibly can: you have to grow yourself as a leader and your team. Yes, but it starts with you. So I have my little letter person because you got these for me last week. I'm very excited. So this is the letter D and we're going to talk about the 3 Ds of the scaling trap.

I just see the donuts.

It is. Well, it says donuts, but no, it's the letter D. And the 3 Ds for the scaling trap are dilution, delegation, and distortion.

Oh, yeah.

So dilution is when value gets watered down. So at 5 people, culture's effortless, right? Everyone hears the founder's heart every day. Everyone knows what matters. Everybody knows each other's names, their pets, all the things. But when growth hits, desperation creeps in, right? Phones are ringing, clients are waiting, leaders start hiring for bodies, not beliefs.

Yep.

You just, I need, I need butts in seats. And that's when dilution begins. So growth breaks when the leader prioritizes speed over alignment. So they choose how fast, like we gotta get this done right now instead of who fits. It's really important. We just, I mean, right people, right seat is something that a lot of different types of gurus talk about. Let's have the right person in the right seat.

Yep.

It, it is an absolute thing and I have I've seen leaders say, we'll fix culture later. I just need to get the work done. We just need help now. And every hire like that slightly dilutes the mission. And as you continue to do that, it becomes a problem because, you know, one hire doesn't kill culture.

No.

But 10 in a row absolutely can.

Yep.

You can't keep hiring the wrong people just because you need people. And you don't lose culture all at once. You dilute it one rushed hire at a time.

It's funny you say that because when I was at the truck dealership, yeah, as the executive, like, branch of it, we took on the hiring for departments. You've got a parts manager who just lost an employee. The parts manager is typically working 50, 55 hours a week. Now he's lost an employee, so now he's working 60— he or she is working 60, 70 hours a week. Oh, by the way, spend some extra time and go find the absolute the best people you can. Guess what's going to happen? You've got a pulse, come on in.

That's exactly right.

Yeah, that's what happens with scaling. It is.

So let's go to the second D, which is delegation gaps. And this is where those doers become managers overnight. So second breakdown happens in leadership. And we've talked about this in other episodes, right? So during growth spurts, we promote our best doers into management roles fast.

Yeah.

Because they were here before, they've got tenure. You know what? I can't find anybody else to do this job. It's yours. So congratulations. Congratulations. Exactly.

Congratulations. You're about to get fired.

About to get fired. But being great at the work does not mean you're ready to lead people. And we've talked about this. So if those new managers aren't trained, aligned, and supported, they unintentionally start killing the culture that they helped build. And they don't even realize that they're doing it. So growth requires leaders to become a new version of themselves. And most organizations never pause to help people make that shift. We have talked before, promoting people without leadership training is irresponsible. You have to train them. And I mean, I've promoted people because they were loyal and hardworking. And then I realized that I never taught them how to coach, give feedback, or carry culture forward. I did it wrong. And that gap creates a lot of confusion fast, and people don't know how to deal with that. And so untrained managers don't scale culture. They actually fragment it.

Yes, I agree. Totally agree.

So that was the second D. The third D is distortion. And this is where the founder's message gets lost.

So it's not what you put on your guitar.

No, it's not. Oh, it's not. So this is— this one's subtle too, because at 5 people, culture is transmitted by proximity. At 25, it has to be transmitted by process.

Telephone. The game of telephone we all played as a kid.

Yes. So we go from proximity to process. So the founder's story, values, expectations— now they're traveling through a whole bunch of different layers of people. And if they're not documented and reinforced, the message gets distorted. If you don't have a document that clarifies your core values that everyone can look at. I realize that there are sometimes people are like, I don't want to work for a cult. Too bad. You want clear expectations. It's important. I mean, Chrissy's cult, like, I'm sorry, if you think it's— that's fine, then it's maybe not the cult for you. So there are good cults.

Go find another cult.

We'll find another cult. So I mean, I've watched the leaders just assume everyone just knows what matters. That's not true. You have to clarify expectations. You have to tell them what's going on. And then they realize after, like, oh, I just thought everybody knew that. Then they realize like 3 layers down, people are operating in assumptions that are not the thing that you thought was important. They're not operating in alignment. So what isn't documented gets distorted.

Yes.

What?

100%.

Yes. So I mean, to kind of summarize some of this, like, growth requires a culture reset, right? Not a rebrand, not a new mission statement. A reset. And the reset asks 4 primary questions. It asks, are we still hiring for the same values? Are our managers equipped to carry the culture? Is the founder's vision still being heard clearly? And are we still growing ourselves as we grow the company? Right?

Those are, those are phenomenal questions because that, that really is, that is that, like you said, that's that reset of like, Are we where we think we are?

Yes.

Because we too often don't ask the question, we assume.

Correct. Yeah. And at Clarity, this is where we use, especially with, with organizations that we work with on the fractional side, we use professional development plans for all levels of leadership because they need it. We talk about stay interviews, which are the early warning system for what's going on with the organization. We care about when people leave, but we really care about why people are staying. So stay interviews are really important to assess your culture. We also look at manager capability assessments and culture audits that are tied to behaviors, not vibes. We've talked about this.

Yes.

It can't— it's not like management is not a vibe. Culture is not a vibe. It is clearly defined. And I think part of the reason why founders sometimes feel blindsided is it's not that they didn't lose passion and they didn't stop caring. It's that they didn't realize that what got them to this point is not going to hold them there.

Yes.

Right. So, and that's, I mean, that's from Dan Sullivan. He talks about that all the time. You've got to continue to keep growing. Yes.

Yeah, I see that all the time. Totally see that.

So, want to talk operations?

Do you even need to ask?

Well, I mean, I figure I might as well just be polite. So how do growth spurts cause shakiness? I mean, we talked about this in the foundation. How does that manifest in operations and marketing?

Oh yeah, this is the— once again, we talked about the— you have to, and I can't believe I didn't say this in the last episode because Like my two favorite sayings come from the same movie, my two favorite business sayings. And the one is, you know, obviously if there's a shitstorm, I want to know which way the wind's blowing. The other one is, like I said, is when did Noah build the ark? Yes, before the flood. You have to look at this. So the once again, the workflows, when you're scaling, there's still going to be some hidden manual workflows. There's processes that were flexible, quote unquote, that were once again in Bob's head. Once again, it's Bob. I don't know why. I just—

that's okay.

It's okay. Sorry, Bob.

We're in a Bob theme.

I mean, at a small scale, they're slightly inconsistent. At a large scale, that's wildly inconsistent. Yes. This is a— I guess I would say this is the, the whip that you would call, because right near the handle of the whip, the whip doesn't move much. You take that out 5 feet, there's a lot of wiggle there and it is going to come back to bite you. To me, once again, that you have to— if you haven't evolved those standard operating procedures we talked about last episode, building them, they were designed for a smaller team. You have to probably get some people to specialize. The thing that I— that so many people don't look at is they say, okay, we're scaling. I went from 2 people to 4 people, all like 2 people did the same thing before. Now I have 4 people doing the same thing. Why not take person A that is better at one thing and worse at something else and have them do more of thing 1?

Yeah.

And less of thing 2 that they're rearranged. Yes, correct. Like, and so many people don't do this. Take, take— when someone's good at something. Yes. Once again, I'll, I'll use a parts, uh, like a parts counter example this. You may have someone that's great at talking to customers that walk in the door, and you may have someone that's great at answering the phone. Have them focus on what those priorities are.

Exactly.

Don't expect them both to do both in the same— it just doesn't— you're wasting so many good resources with that. Um, realizing that because of that too, in some cases someone may not fit as well in the updated workflow. So finding where they do fit, finding how they do fit. You need to spend the time to do that. If you do not have the SOPs in place before this, you're not going to know where the hell they fit. No, you're just going to look at it and be like, it's kind of— I guess I would say like you have no idea where they're at on the map.

Yeah, you're just guessing.

You've got a blank piece of paper and you're like, they're somewhere on this paper. Where are they going? Where are they supposed to be? What, what's supposed— you have to make sure you've got that in process beforehand. So while you're scaling, as this stuff is breaking, you can start to look at it and be like, look, Bob, how about you focus more on this and less on this?

Yeah.

Bill, I guess it's B names.

Yes.

Um, how about you focus on the thing that Bob's bad at and less on the thing that Bob's good at? Because once again, you're great at the thing Bob's bad at, and you're terrible at the thing Bob is good at.

Let's build synergy.

Correct. Let's build this across the board.

Yeah.

Um, once again, you talked about this somewhat, but like the communication tool— yeah, is that with the vision? There is also with that, that with the process.

Yeah.

What could have been like, I may hand a process to one person before Now, because people are more specialized, because we've scaled, there may be 3 separate people that handle this. Yeah. Who gets it? Where?

Why? How?

And then how do I know when it's done?

Yeah.

If someone sells a project, they hand it off to person A. It used to be just person A that handled it. Now it goes from A to B to C, and C's the one that finishes it. Right.

Like, how do we communicate?

Right. Does C know that they need to tell the salesman like, hey, this stuff's done? If you have your salespeople constantly hunting down your process people and going like, where am I? Where's my stuff, man? Where's my stuff?

No. Or you have the space where it's like, well, you just need to trust us to do it. No, there has to be a verify because—

oh gosh, yes.

Those— I mean, this is where I'm going to say salespeople have to deal with a lot because if you're in service delivery or you're in some type of deliverable and you're responsible for communicating Stop just saying you need to trust that I'm going to do the job. No, you need to communicate with your salespeople. It's unfair to make them hang out in the dark.

Oh, it totally is. Because to me, like, if there is something that you have to be able to give them a gauge on process.

Yes.

And is this going to be delivered on time? Because nothing is worse as a salesperson than saying, hey, this is going to be 2 weeks late on the day that it's due.

Yes.

If you tell them 2 weeks ahead of time that it's going to be 2 weeks late, still not great, but yeah, it's so much better than going to them saying, hey guys, I know you've got all this equipment lined up for today, but it's, it's not going to be here.

Yeah, especially when you're in a consulting or a service-oriented business. Yes, your salespeople and your service delivery people have to be able to be in constant dialogue because the other is the salesperson says, yeah, we can do that. And then the service delivery people are like, what do you mean? This is what you sold, what project we're doing. Like, you've got— if it's a two-way street, it makes it a lot easier. And some of those, having them documented with SOPs, but then also just creating a culture of alignment and communication where we're constantly talking to each other and we have the ability to collaborate. Because sometimes a service delivery person can really help a salesperson out on their proposal because, hey, these are the hours that we think you should be projecting, as opposed to you said it was only going to take 10 hours to do this project. project if we do it right. So let's talk about that first. And they're usually happy because then it's more money, but it's also a better project. You get a better delivery.

Yes.

People are not upset.

People are happy.

Their expectations are met.

Yeah. As I say, it's all about the expectations. And if the salesman is armed with the correct things to talk about those expectations, then it is a correct conversation at that point.

Dialogue while you scale.

Yes. The other thing is too, is the shift in how things happen. It's not just an operations change, but it's a way those operations are communicated. I have decided in some cases, hey guys, we're going to change how we do this. And I get looks like if it's a, it's a team meeting, I get looks from across the room like, you what?

You what? I love it when you think we're going to change how we do this when you haven't done the thing in years.

Correct. The other part that, that is exactly where I'm going, especially as a CEO. Yeah. Because I'm like, oh, Oh, well, we should just have Bob do this part and Bill do this part, not realizing that that now gives Bob 80% of the work.

Yes.

And Bill's over there twiddling his thumbs going, hey, Bob, how's it going? Yeah, it becomes really ugly really fast. So to me, that shift in how you have to look at the— like, what works in the huddle isn't necessarily going to work in the department. You have to take this past the people that are going to be doing this, because once again, you need this culture of trust with them so they can look at it and be like, oh, I know what's going on, and yeah, I'm an active participant in this. I didn't just get hit with a big bag of dog duty when I walked in the door because Josh thought it was a good idea and he has no clue what I'm doing. Um, that once again, I said, the— when the how of communication doesn't keep up with the scale, it is the— it's frustrating. Employees, managers, everyone in there is like, what the hell is going on?

Yes.

And what's difficult is as soon as that starts to escalate, as the owner, you or just any leader, you have to have the cool head to step back and say, look, we are really in it right here. We need to step back. We need to stop. Like, we need to stop letting this escalate.

Yeah.

And we need to figure out what the problem is. We know what the symptoms are. We need to figure out what the problem is. That most cases it comes from breaking that foundation. If people stop feeling supported, they start feeling obstructed. Like, I was told to do this, not, hey, can we do this? How can we do this? How can I help you do this? What, what roadblocks can I remove? As soon as people start to feel like less supported and more obstructed by management— and I, I've been there in so many cases where management's like, do this. And I'm like, no, that's just an— that's another way— that's another way to hamper me. That's another way to make my job more difficult without much of a reward to it.

Yeah.

Um, I remember I was in the call center at Summer Racing Equipment and was like— they would be like, hey, you need to do this and this. And I'm like, there is zero benefit to me in doing this.

How about no?

And they're like, well, it's what we'd like you to do. And I'm like, I'm a commissioned salesman. I'm selling a lot of stuff.

Don't, don't, don't mess with me.

Don't mess with me. Don't mess with my jive.

Yeah.

Um, and it's a— it becomes a problem because if once again they're just like, nope, just do it, I'm like, no, that's, that's, that's a great way to piss off your salespeople.

Well, and you're, you're high performers because if you hamper them from being able to make money and it changes their dynamic, they're done.

100%. Yeah, I, I checked out very shortly after that. Yeah. Um, so yeah, so from the marketing side of it, um, brand promise versus reality. This is where you, like, you were kind of alluding to this earlier. Yeah. Like, if you— it's tough to maintain the same level of quality, the same level of service as you scale. Yeah. Because you're trying to balance how many people am I throwing at this as to how many people I have, how burnt out are my people.

Yeah.

I mean, how much money have I invested in this that I need to get back to? Um, if the example that I always give is the bank effect.

Yeah.

Yep, we're gonna pick on banks again. If you start scaling at a rate that you cannot keep up your culture with and you aren't actively trying to maintain that culture, you end up with that bank effect where the brand is like, hey, we're happy to help you. And you have someone standing behind the counter when you walk into the bank that looks like they're a hostage. Yeah, that shift is felt by customers. I mean, you say we've got amazing customer service and you have scaled to the point where your customer service sucks because every customer-facing worker is now at 110% or 120% of capacity, it's only a matter of time before customers are going to feel that shift from quality to quantity. And they're like, I am no longer getting the product that I thought I was going to get. And if that's intentional, that's fine. Yeah. But in so many cases, that has been an unintended consequence where people are like, oh, uh, you have to proactively monitor the culture within your company to like— you have to check in. If you see people are at 98%, realize they're probably at 107%. Yeah, it's just the way it is. No, if you're not staying ahead of that curve, you are well, well behind it. Because when you think you're staying ahead of it, as the owner, as the manager, as the leader, we are kind of the last to figure it out. Yeah, we like to put on our rose-colored glasses and be like, no, everyone loves it here. Yeah, I'm amazing. Who wouldn't love me? B, uh, you don't need to look at me like that for it.

No, no, thank you.

So yeah, you have to stay well out ahead of this because however far ahead you think you are, yeah, you are not.

No.

Um, so that, that capacity needs to be monitored as a safety net too. Um, the other thing that I look at is keep an eye on your capacity You can go, as you've said, 110% for a very short period of time.

Yeah.

The example that I like to give is business is continually running.

Yes.

You can throw a couple of short sprints in there. You cannot sprint the entire time.

No, absolutely.

You just can't.

No, you'll break yourself and you'll break your people.

Yeah, you will break— you'll break everything. And that's the biggest mistake that I see that breaks culture so quickly when people are scaling is they're expecting more from the same number of people.

Yeah.

And once again, people start running faster and faster and faster, and eventually people just start dropping dead.

Yes.

Um, someone clutches their chest. This is the big one, Elizabeth! They're dying. Flop over to the side of the track. The other thing is too, and a great gauge for this— you said this a number of episodes back— PTO should not be panic.

No.

If it is, you've got a problem.

Yeah.

This is a great temperature gauge for it. Now, PTO It's probably some stress.

It can be. Absolutely.

It's like, oh, hey, we're all— we all got to pick up a little slack here. It should not be, uh-oh, I'm so glad you're back.

I couldn't deal with it. Right.

It should not be, uh-oh, I just— no. To me, the— once again, it comes back to that success is a shared thing for me. If the team doesn't see the ROI of growth for themselves, remember, the people really do— I don't want to say they don't care about your business. But they don't care about your business nearly as much as you do.

Oh gosh, no. I would hope not.

Fractional at best.

Yes.

And by the fraction I'm talking about is there's a 1 on top.

Yeah, you have to pay them to be there.

Correct. Correct.

You show up.

You show up and sometimes unpaid. Yes.

Yeah.

They have to know that there's a return on investment for them. And if they know that, you have a much better chance of keeping your culture intact. That better tools, less friction, removed bottlenecks. I mean, they will— like, if you are constantly working for those things, they will see the growth. They will see it as growth, and they will see it as good growth rather than, he's just asking me to carry this up the hill so he can buy another Lambo. Yeah, no, I, I, I'm in the Lambo. I, I, I, I don't even like those cars really. Hey, I'm a Porsche guy. Um, to me, the other thing is too is when you're This is the other thing that I see is it's just a short time. It's just— we just need a little bit of effort.

Suck it up.

Yeah, suck it up. It's just a little bit. Don't sugarcoat growth. No, guys, this is going to be tough. I really appreciate your help in this. When we get past this, as we're able to get to this mark, yeah, we're going to be able to do this thing.

Yeah, be honest about it.

Yes, show them a light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, and make sure they realize it's not a train. Yes, please, because in so many cases they're worried it They're worried it is. If your culture initially is set up that they're like, hey, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but it seems to make this honking noise, they're going to be worried about that. The hiring and panic thing is something we addressed a little bit. Yeah, I, I, to me, the dismantling of that and how it did— like that one bad hire, yes, starts it.

It does.

And it's a cascading effect.

Yeah.

Because you expect that you're going to like you're going to add, you're going to add a person and you're going to add another 100% capacity to whatever a person does. With the wrong hire, that may be 50 or 60% capacity for them, and it may take 10% of someone else's capacity. It may take 4% of someone else's capacity. Yeah, I see that all the time.

I do too.

Slow down, damn it.

Slow down. Hiring in a panic is how you borrow relief from the future. You pay it back with interest. It's not— it's never good. I don't understand why we treat hiring like last call at the bar and we don't want to go home by ourselves. I do.

I have, I have made so many over the years dating references with hiring. It is because, let's face it, you're going to spend more time with those people than you are with the person that you're dating, most likely. Yeah.

So, and I would say too, if you cannot describe your culture and expectations clearly in 3 sentences, you're not ready to hire someone. You've really got to be— I mean, you got to slow down enough to protect the standard in your organization, even if it hurts for the short term. Clarify what you want.

Let's be honest, you did not start your business so you could spend your days buried in HR paperwork or Googling how to handle employee drama.

That's why I started Clarity HR. We're your fractional HR team, giving you real people, real support, and real solutions. Whether it's compliance headaches, hiring struggles, or just needing someone to take the people stuff off your plate, we've got your back.

So if you're ready to stop using duct tape and hope as your HR strategy and finally get some peace of mind, head over to clarityhr.com.

That's clarityhr.com. Simple, clear, and here to help.

I'll give you a few seconds to go to the website while we get ready to get back to the show. It's interesting. I use a question for that. Yeah, I give people our mission or our core values. Yes. And I say, what's your opinion about that?

Yeah, that's a great one.

Right off the bat, some people— I mean, most people, you see a little bit of panic in their eyes.

Yeah. How do you feel about this?

You're like, um, um, I don't know what he's thinking I should feel about this.

Exactly.

Other than, hey, I like it. Um, they need a better answer than that. The, the house on the bad foundation. Yeah, we talk like— I find it's funny, you keep going, clarity is kindness. Yeah, you keep talking clarity all the time. I must have a leaky basement. Yeah, because I talk about all these—

there's a lot of lessons for business and deferred maintenance on your home. So there really are. We've talked about it.

I love that.

There is.

I love that. Don't neglect your home.

Don't neglect I mean, I think it's where a lot of times leaders feel stuck too, cuz you're trying to build everything while, I mean, the house is already built and you're trying to grow or you're trying to add on, you're trying to do things. So you've gotta make sure the foundation's secure. So I would say what's really important is that you slow down. I know that people don't like to do that, but sometimes we need to slow down, slow down to speed up. And I mean, I would say too that, you know, underpinning your foundation while living in the house house means that you have to retrofit all those systems as you go.

Yeah.

And it's messy. It's messy. It's humbling. Um, but it's necessary.

Don't put on an addition if you've got a leaky roof.

Yes.

Fix the damn roof.

That's it. Growth doesn't wait for perfection, but it does demand stability. Yes. You don't have to be perfect.

No.

But you've got to be stable.

No.

So, no.

Uh, the other piece that I see a lot too is, and I've, I I know I was this. Oh, was I this in the worst way when the founder is the bottleneck.

Oh yeah.

Let, let, like I hear Elsa in the background, let it go. Yes. Just, just let it go.

Yeah, that's it. It's not losing control, it's upgrading your leadership. So I would say, you know, founders don't break companies because they care too much. They break them because they hold on long and they refuse to grow, it's not because you care too much.

My baby, damn it.

It's because it was your baby and you wouldn't let anybody else even take care of your baby. And that's it. You have got to let people do things for you. Otherwise, just admit that you don't want to grow because that's a great— it's a conversation to have. And there are times where I've had that with different business owners and said, are you sure you want to grow? Because to grow means that you are no longer the center of the universe.

Right.

And I like being center of the universe. I'm like, then I don't think you want to grow. And that's okay.

It's interesting. I've talked with people about it before too, that like business owners, I've seen it. I've talked about it with a doctor before and I've talked about it with someone that makes candy. And they both truly enjoy, like the candy maker enjoyed making the candy. The doctor loved working with the patients. And I'm like, great, you can still own the business, but you need to hire a general manager. That is their job to grow the business and to manage the business. You're still allowed to be the owner. But you have to let them run it.

Yeah, there's a difference between the owner hat, the manager hat, CEO hat, and they—

that you can own it, but you have to let someone else treat it as their own because otherwise it's just not going to grow.

Yeah, and sometimes as an owner you have to get out of the way. You are the problem.

If I had a nickel for every time I've been told that.

Same, same.

Uh, what are some— what are some of the key takeaways here? Um, I'll let you start with this.

Pause the hiring if possible. Take some time. Yeah. Again, if you can't describe your culture in 3 sentences, you shouldn't hire anybody.

No, you, you definitely should not, because that's the key to it.

Yeah.

Um, if you're the leader, work on yourself.

Please, please.

Like, don't expect everyone else to get around— like around you to get better while you stay the same?

No, because that's the reason why they're not getting better, because you're not showing them the example of what it means to be a good leader and develop yourself. So I'll get off my soapbox now.

You said that with authority, like, listen here, people.

I would say, and to that point, developing yourself, the next is develop your people.

Yeah.

So give them a— give it— create a budget for training and development. Stop just saying, oh, I'll just let them listen to— I mean, they should listen to our podcast. Yes, but there are other things that they should be doing and you need to invest dollars and time into your people. Yep.

I'm going to make a superbike reference.

Okay.

Overcommunicate your vision because as you start to go faster, it gets tougher to see where you're going. Yeah. You need to say it more. Focus on your vision more because when you talk about, if you say, here's where we're going. Yeah, you're going to get people to buy into it. If you say it once, people just feel like they're getting more work.

Yeah, I agree.

Um, 10% a year forever or 100% in one year, what's better?

Oh, I think it depends on your foundation. 10% a year with strong culture systems and leadership capacity is sustainable and it compounds, right? 100% in one year without that foundation is usually borrowed growth.

Growth.

Yeah, you're gonna shrink and contract.

So because you're not ready for it, you, you may hang on to it for a little while.

Yes.

But the problem is, is as you scale, like, you aren't prepared to scale that. Your customers are going to feel the squeeze, your employees are going to feel the squeeze, and all the things that got you to that 100%, bye-bye.

Yeah, I don't think fast growth without structure isn't success. No, it's not. It's a loan.

It's a loan. I love that.

Alone with interest.

It's a loan. Yeah, wear your helmet. Yeah, wear your helmet.

Absolutely. What's the first system every growing business needs to document?

All of them. How decisions get made. Yeah, like, who's making this decision? Who has the authority? Who has the autonomy to make this decision? What's, what's the process for making decisions? And I mean, to me, there's like a certain level of decision where I'm like, I don't want to be involved. Yeah, um, if it's under $400, don't even ask me, just do it. Yeah, don't care.

Yeah, that's it. I agree.

Uh, how do you— like, this is a much better question for you. How do you keep it fun when you're, when you're in the grind of a growth spurt? Hey guys, we're working 70 hours this week, isn't this fun?

Let them cry. Um, so I would I mean, fun during growth looks like noticing wins.

Yes.

So acknowledging what they're saying, thank you. Letting people feel proud of what they're building, even when it's hard. So I mean, fun is not ping pong.

No, I love that when it's like, hey, you're working 7 hours a week. Here's a ping pong table.

No, fun is not—

When the hell am I gonna use this thing?

No, it's progress with purpose. So acknowledge their wins, cheer them on, work together.

It's funny because for me, we talked about how I have a difficult time celebrating wins. So I've had to be very intentional about like, oh hey, we've made a step. I have to put a note in like, tell the people, yeah, good job, right, right, thank you, um, thanks guys, this is really good. Um, and I, I hardly mean it, appreciation, but it's not one of those things that I typically think about. So I gotta put notes in there like, hey dummy, me. Yeah, your people need to hear this.

Give them appreciation.

If you— there's— if you think there's something that we need to hear, there could be a lot of things that we need to hear. What about— do you think there's a lot of—

always.

Yeah, especially what topics you would like us to cover. Uh, businessfixpodcast.com. Uh, next episode: when to coach, when to correct, and when to cut. Oh boy, no evil laugh needed. Uh, do, do us a favor, take care of yourself. If you can, take care of someone else too. We will see you very, very soon.