The growth trap: success can outgrow the founder.

Working inside a business during its progression into the largest tier of the UK listed market reveals a different side of growth. Customers, teams and commercial complexity expand together. The methods that once created momentum can become a constraint when every judgement still travels through the same small group.

This reflection draws on a period of growth into FTSE 100 membership. It is a lesson about contributing to a larger organisation’s development, not a claim that one person created its entire success. Scale changes the standard of information, governance and delegation the business needs.

The learning

The useful shift is from personal control to a system that makes good decisions repeatable. Agree what each team owns, how performance is understood and when an issue should be escalated. More reporting is only useful when it leads to a better judgement or a clearer action.

An edited learning note based on career reflections supplied by Steven Myers. Identifying details have been withheld; this is not a transcript of a private member discussion.