What Made You Successful Will Not Scale Forever

If your organization feels stuck, the problem might not be your market, your team, or your tools. It might be the invisible ceiling created by success itself. We talk through the awkward reality of organizational growth: the habits that helped you win early can quietly become the very thing that keeps you from scaling.

We dig into the real growing pains leaders face as companies mature, from the move out of founder-led “everyone knows everything” mode into repeatable process infrastructure. We break down what changes as you go from solopreneur to partnership to a larger team, why communication stops being accidental and must become intentional, and why many companies stall when the CEO insists on touching every decision. That “I need to review it” reflex can feel responsible, but it often turns into a queue that slows everything down.

We also challenge the default tech-first approach to scaling. Before you buy a CRM or announce a transformation, we push for clarity on outcomes and workflows so the tool supports the process, not the other way around. And yes, we go there on AI: what it can do well, where it still creates risk, and why short-term cost cutting can lead to long-term unintended consequences like lost expertise and weakened innovation. If you care about leadership transition, change management, and scaling a business without burning people out, this conversation is for you.

Transcript

Helium Voices And Weird Gases

Karman 0:30

Good morning, Scott and Tammy. Good morning, Carmen. Good morning, Carmen. Hermits online. Scott's been uh huffing helium this morning. Was that your your helium voice?

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Look, we should right up front, we should talk about drugs and Scott.

Karman 0:54

Those two things go together. Well, that wasn't the topic I had in mind today, Tammy, but it it sounds pretty intriguing. My guess is that we could actually dive in and see if we could do an intervention.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Yeah, we I mean we could do helium or we could do sulfur fluoride hexafluoride. That makes you sound like Darth Vader.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

The fact that the chemist knows this is kind of funny. Or any or anyone who watches Big Bang Theory. I would not have remembered that from Big Bang Theory, but of course you would, because you remember all things.

Karman 1:32

Where does one acquire hexafluoride?

SPEAKER_02 1:37

The fact that you can say that word.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

I don't know. Probably, you know, you probably just buy it. You know it, make it.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Remember, this was the guy that when COVID hit and you couldn't get the stuff for your hands, he made it. He he went out to the internet, got all the chemicals, put it together, and made his own.

Karman 2:00

Did you have a label? Like, you know, Scott's gel, I don't know, something way better than no.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

We can buy it at uh Concord specialty gases, same day shipping. Hexafluoride? Yeah, yeah. Uh air gas, any of those gas suppliers, you can buy it.

Karman 2:21

Okay. One of my sisters used to be the product acquisition person for the chemistry department at the university. So she probably could also hook me up with a few suppliers.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Oh, yeah, for sure. Think about that for just a minute. I mean, I know there's gas suppliers like the gas that goes into your truck, right? Gas that even goes into your house. But Scott knows that there's gas suppliers for things like hexafluoride or however you said that word. That all this very important knowledge that is in that big head of his. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Yes. And and you know, I'm a gas supplier.

Karman 3:03

You and my husband both. You and my husband. Are are we still talking about things you say?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

I think so. Okay, all right. Just clarifying. Is that what it means when somebody says I'm talking on a both both sides or both ends? Probably.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Oh man. Okay, we might want to just move on from this subject.

Hidden Industries And Consultant Perspective

Karman 3:25

Move on from this. I think your point is interesting, Tammy. Like, there are companies that do stuff that we never thought of before.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Yeah, it's true.

When Organizations Outgrow Their Startup Playbook

Karman 3:36

And as consultants, we run into whole industries that are sometimes like, wow, there's a lot more to this than I would have realized as an everyday human being out doing my stuff in the world. At the same time, there are some commonalities from business to business. And one of the things the three of us have been talking about in the last few days is how organizations mature and how, you know, what made you successful as an organization when you started. There's a point at which it's X big and probably those structures don't work anymore. And you need to rethink how you approach things as an organization, sort of like when we coach with people and we help them see that what got them successfully to where they are isn't necessarily what will get them successfully to the next stage of their career. So, my question today is as you work with different organizations that may or may not sell hexafluoride, what are some of those growing pains? What are some of those spots where you tell people this is probably, you've probably outgrown where you're at and you need to rethink things?

Process Infrastructure Beats More Space

SPEAKER_02 5:02

There's been a lot written on when in a frontline employee first becomes a supervisor, supervisor first becomes a manager, manager first gets into kind of that first level of executive leadership about how difficult that transition is. There are a lot of people who don't make it through, right? They get promoted and they cannot like take off the mantle of what got them there in the past in order to go through the growth panes of that new position. And so it's something we talk about a lot when it comes to individuals. There hasn't been quite as much research. And then even if it's out there, and it is, by the way, if you look, but a lot of people don't read it, they don't look at it, they don't understand it. But organizations truly, just like an infant becomes a toddler, right? A toddler becomes a grade schooler, a grade schooler becomes a teenager, just like that, every organization goes through phases, and those transitions are hard, right? It's the same, and and they're not easy, and it requires a period of growth and a period of uneasiness. And because we don't like uneasiness, we don't like that growth stage, that growth stage feels yucky. Many organizations do their best to avoid it and they hold on so very, very tightly. And so I actually like this question because it is something that organizations struggle through, and many of them, again, don't make it, right? They get stuck somewhere in there. So it that's it's an interesting thing to for us to kind of dive into today. Thank you.

From Solopreneur To Real Communication

SPEAKER_00 6:55

I've frequently thought about it as many times organizations think about their infrastructure. We're growing, and they say, Oh, we need a bit, we need more space, or we need better IT, or we and so a lot of times it's that physical kind of space. When my experience is it's more about process infrastructure. And as you start to get bigger, starting to kind of formalize some processes. So in my head, I think, oh, when you hit 30, 40, 50 employees, it probably makes sense that you have someone formally in HR. When you start, and you can start to look at this and you start to say, oh, here's how we do sales or revenue generation, whether or not it's sales or grant writing or whatever, and you start to formalize those things. Many times companies will grow and they still rely on the CEO or the founder to continue doing all of the frontline work that they did before. When really, if you want to kind of think about those growth and plateau and growth and plateau at those little plateaus, that's when the leaders have to start doing something different.

The CEO As The Growth Governor

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Well, I just remember, Scott, it that process when it was just me, right? Solopreneur. Yeah, I had great conversations with myself in my head, you know, and I'd make I'd make decisions and I'd go do that, right? And then as I got into a partnership, then it's like, well, now we're in a partnership. We have to have these conversations between the two of us. You can't just go off and do whatever it is that you want to do. And so then you had the two of you and you have that conversation. Well, you know, then you get past just a couple of us, and all of a sudden, well, wait a minute, we we made a call and we had a conversation, but we didn't tell the staff, right? Or you couldn't just like have that conversation, everybody was listening in because we're in different places, so not everybody was listening in, so they didn't know that kind of stuff it becomes obvious, and then you need a process, you need a way of getting from here to there. But the one Scott, you know, I agree that we need processes and we need systems like a CN CRM system and you know, all that kind of stuff as you hit certain spots. I think the one though that is probably the hardest in that is for a CEO to recognize that if they keep their fingers in everything, they are the governor, they keep the organization from growing. Leaders, they hit that plateau. If they want their fingers in everything, they become the plateau. And that is the place that I think we see it more than anything, right? If we can get a CRM system, we can get a process for doing this. But if I have a leader who says, you know, I need to look at that, I need to verify that before you send that out. That needs to be go through me. We've slowed it down back to the old, the historical, the smaller organization where that person could control. And when we have folks who have those control issues, they're going through that next phase of growth. The fact of the matter is the organization will not go there, even if we have the right process, even if we have the right software, even if we have, because that human being says, I need to be in control. And that is a super uncomfortable place for them to give up that control, because that control is what made them successful. Them knowing everything and touching everything, that's what made them successful in the first place. So I think it's actually both, Scott, right?

Define The Process Before The Tool

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Systems, process, people. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And I and I think it really is this element of I tell so many clients this. Oh, we're gonna buy a CRM. I wouldn't buy anything until you say, here's the process we want. Then what is the right tool for that process? Or talking with a client right now and they're saying, we want to, we want to go through a transformation. Well, what does that mean? Well, it's gonna be based on this technology they have. I'm like, well, that means you're technology reliant. Is that really what you want? Or do you want it regardless of the technology? It's okay if you say, I want it because of that technology, that's okay. You limit yourself to that technology, and so it is looking at this and saying, What am I, what am I trying to accomplish and why am I trying to accomplish that?

Future Thinking And Unintended Consequences

AI Hype Needs Human Judgment

SPEAKER_02 11:34

It's almost, yeah, no, it's not almost, it is. If we go into the road model that we introduced in our last book, right? Think the A in that is analyze. And, you know, sometimes the analysis phase is, you know, what's good about this, what's not good about this, right? One of those pieces, however, is looking out into the future. And it's saying, what are, if we were to do this, what are the short-term consequences, barriers that we have to get through? But what might also be the long term? And I don't think we oftentimes are visionary enough to actually go out there and they'll say, oh, so and so this department's going to struggle with this, or we don't have people who have this skill set. All those things are kind of short-term, and we can get through those barriers or those structures. But then there's this thing that says, what could be the unintended consequences? The thing that, like five years from now, when we look back, we'll be like, holy crap, we didn't realize that we were doing that. And I do think that that is another place that sometimes if you are overly optimistic, you will not take the time to look at that. If you are overly pessimistic, you're like, well, then we can't do it at all. And you got to find that sweet spot in between where it's like we have to recognize that there anything that we do, we don't have all the answers. You never can, and waiting to have all the answers doesn't make any sense. However, you do have to in that spot at least think it through and consider it and make sure. And if you're not really clear, like Scott, right, what's your outcome? What is it that you're truly hoping that this will do for you? And is that the outcome that you want? Truly, or is it like, oh, but this is the latest, greatest, or this is AI, and we're gonna, you know, introduce it and use it in this particular spot, and it's gonna be great, without really thinking about some of those other long-term potential unintended consequences to make sure, because we're watching some organizations right now that are just dumping staff because they are convinced that AI is gonna do this work, and there may be some unintended consequences to those organizations three years, five years, seven years down the road, right? Now, I don't know. I I'm not not, you know, a seer that can see these things, but I will tell you, I believe people can get stuff done, and we should be ensuring that we're not relying on a whole bunch of other things to do things because people are gonna be the folks who will innovate ways to things. People, I think, are going to be the answer. And I think some people are a little short-sighted on that AI thing right now. Pretty controversial, I bet. What is that true, Scott, or am I crazy? You're the guy who know who knows that better than I do.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Well, I don't I don't know that this the AI thing is going to differentiate differentiate whether you're crazy or not. So that's probably a much longer conversation.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that that dig in the middle. Yeah, go for it.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

I think I do think it is short-sighted right now because it's so new, and there are some things it does really, really well, and there are some things that it still comes up with mistakes. And so if you have people who aren't thinking as they use this technology or tool, or then there's risk. I think there are some things that it will it'll make sense that it's going to, I'm gonna say, minimize the need for certain skill sets, which also all that means is then how are you investing in people to grow whatever that skill set is that they need for the future? And you know, people use this term AI, and I think they use it as an umbrella term when many times what they're talking about is automation, right, or you know, reporting kind of things, which AI can do some of, not all. You still have to have someone who is wise enough to figure out how. I try and use AI tools to do different things, and it I think I'm pretty darn good at writing prompts. Sometimes generate some shit.

Getting Help And Building Iteration Muscles

SPEAKER_02 15:56

My first year it generated shit. It still requires human beings who are thinking, who are saying, as we go into this next stage, what does that look like? And recognizing that sometimes that thinking is gonna be me, but sometimes that thinking is going to be someone other than me. It's it's beyond my understanding. So let's go get that expertise. Sometimes it's it's not even that. I just need an outside perspective because I'm biased and my team is biased. And so I just need someone who doesn't bring kind of all that history into the conversation. That's what consultants are about. So this piece, right? If the organization is gonna grow, we still are going to need human beings who question themselves, who push themselves. And let's go to this thing, they become more. Because if we don't, they're not gonna grow. If we are not going to push ourselves, and if we're not willing to let go of things and let others, the organization is not going to become more. And I think that message to kind of go back, Carmen, to what you asked us about is this piece to have the wisdom to know, hmm, it's time for me to go get help. One of the scariest words that any kind of executive leader, we don't like to use that word because I'm so used to being that person in charge. But sometimes I, in order for this organization to grow, I have to admit that I shouldn't have all the answers in this. And we bring other people in. And in that spot, whether it's, you know, a vice president, a brand new hire that's gonna push us and make us think in a new way, a consultant that comes for just a little time, we borrow them and pay them and send them out, right? But in those ways, pushes us to consider something that we might not have considered before. And in that space, notice that I'm not just following blindly, I'm considering, I'm listening to. I am saying, oh, expand my perspective so that I have the opportunity then to see it in a new way. And I do think that that is wise. And I do think that organizations grow when they take the time to consider those things that scare them to death, right? And Scott, you were one of the first people that ever scared me to death in business. I will never forget that day. And I was like, hell, I don't, I don't want to go there. And he was like, but you will, and it will be good. And it required new technology, new systems, additional people that we had to trust, or I had to trust. I don't know, you probably trusted him right away. But that was good, and it was good for me, and it was good for us, right?

Preparing For Continuous Change

SPEAKER_00 18:51

And what is important is to me, it really comes back to the growth questions. Whatever you decide to do, it is then saying what worked, what didn't work, what will we do different, and you refine it along the way. That is okay. And then I'm gonna blindly run because I believe this is the right thing to do without any assessment, without any reflection. That's where organizations get pummeled.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

So that or they decide not to move at all, right? So it's those two things, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:20

And sometimes not moving at all might be the right decision. You still have to assess. That's correct.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

And in that space, it's finding that that if my tendency is to run, I need to have someone help me slow down and look. And if my tendency is to stick, not like get stuck in the status quo, I need to have someone help push me out of that comfort zone. And both of those places are places that, again, we're not saying do it blindly, but do it with a trusted partner that helps you consider short-term consequences, long-term consequences, long-term unintended consequences. And in that spot, that allows you to step up with thoughtful consideration. And again, it's not going to go perfect. It never goes perfect, right? But it is that iteration that is where we learn and grow. And you have to prepare the organization. And we're not in this world anymore where change is like a once once every three or four years kind of thing. Change is continual, and you have to prepare the organization for this continue iteration, this continued stepping up, this to continue to learn that next thing, because that is the spot that we're in right now is what's next. How am I going to do that? How, what are we going to do to get us in that particular spot? And having very thoughtful conversations to help you make those decisions is what's going to help an organization through those growth time periods inside the organization.