Your Room Gets Smaller As You Scale

As you scale your company, the room where you can be fully honest gets smaller, not bigger. The stakes rise, the decisions get heavier, and the number of people who truly understand your reality quietly shrinks.

If you’re a founder building at scale, this post is about that feeling and why we’re deliberately building new rooms for founders through Founders’ Edge.

Why does your room get smaller as you scale?

Early on, you can talk about everything with almost anyone: friends, your partner, people in your mastermind, even your team. The numbers are smaller, the risks feel personal but contained, and the decisions don’t yet ripple through hundreds of lives.

Then the business grows.

  • You add more people.
  • You sign bigger contracts.
  • You carry more responsibility than anyone around you can fully see.

Paradoxically, your options for honest conversation narrow. You still have friends and family. You still have advisors. But very few people know what it feels like to sign the front of the checks, carry payroll at scale, and make decisions that impact dozens or hundreds of households.

That’s where isolation creeps in, not because you’re alone, but because you’re the one at the center.

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How to Scale Behavior Without Over-Engineering the System

As companies grow, it’s natural to look for control. Things start to move faster. Decisions get more distributed.

And suddenly, leaders start asking: “How do we make sure people don’t mess this up?”

That question usually leads to one thing: overbuilt systems.

Extra layers. Tighter permissions. Approval chains that go nowhere. All created to prevent edge cases that might happen — or once did.

But the truth is: Most overengineering isn’t about improving process. It’s about avoiding a leadership moment.

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How to Lead Without Being Held Hostage by Your Team

Early in my leadership journey, I made a mistake I see so many founders make. I let the team hold me hostage. Not because I didn’t know what was right. Not because I didn’t care about the mission. But because in the moment — I was afraid.

Afraid to say no.

Afraid of pushback.

Afraid of their reaction if I stood firm.

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Gossip Isn’t Feedback: How Real Leaders Handle Team Conflict

In scaling companies, feedback travels fast. Unfortunately… so does gossip.

One of the biggest mistakes I see leaders make is acting like a human Slack channel — passing along feedback from one person to another without putting them in the same room.

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Project Rescue Series: Project Processes

You may be asked at some point to take over a failing project. When joining a failing project, you will have to assess the people, processes, and tools. Today, I want to focus on processes. 

When I join a failing project, the first thing I want to understand is whether the scope is clear? I look at the documented scope, but I also take time to understand what people believe the scope is. I frequently find there is a mismatch between what is expected and what is documented. At that point, we take the time to align on scope, clearly defining what is in scope as well as out of scope for the project. 

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Organizational Gardners

Being a team-building enthusiast and agile blabber-mouth allows me to participate from everything from executive meetings to dev. team ping pong tournaments and believe me when I say, I’ve had more fun in meetings than I have playing ping pong. I’ve been in meetings where everyone feeds off one another and we’re able to build, optimize, or plan something amazing. I’ve been in meetings I’ve looked forwards to and left feeling refreshed to go do more! Why won’t I forget those meetings? Because those teams were high-performing, self-organizing, powerhouses with leaders that gave them direction and guardrails. Some of the most engaging leaders and most amazing teams I’ve ever worked with were waterfall folks through and through. Continue reading

My Journey from I QUIT To I DO: The Path to Achieving my Full Potential

Walking into my boss’ office to tell him I was quitting was one of the hardest moments in my career. I was in tears. I loved my job. My boss was wonderful. My team was fun. The company was a great company to work for. But it was time to leave. At university I took the Myers Briggs test. I remember sitting in class, reading about the best careers for an ENTJ. There was one that stood out to me: CEO. That’s what I wanted. Over time I forgot though, distracted by different career options. In my MBA I took a project management course and discovered an entire career field just for me. I poured everything into project management. I began volunteering at the Project Management Institute, worked on finding a project management job, and in general lived and breathed project management. Life as a project manager was great, but there was still something missing. Continue reading

How much does a Change Manager and Salesperson have in Common?

“Change management” and “sales strategies” are phrases not often used in the same sentence. They belong to two different professional worlds and it is doubtful that many change management consultants see sales techniques as important to their work. Interestingly though, when looking deeper into the concepts behind successful sales strategies, there are several important lessons that directly relate to an effective change management strategy. The following are four sales concepts that should be added to any change management consultant’s tool kit to improve their effectiveness with their clients: Continue reading

Why Your Mindset Could Be Limiting Growth

The key when we don’t see eye to eye is understanding where the other person is coming from. That’s not always easy. I found myself in a situation where someone else was assuming the worst about me and I couldn’t understand why. I’m a transparent person; so you don’t have to guess my motivations. Nevertheless, I was shaking my head in disbelief as someone accused me of things I would never do. It wasn’t until weeks later that I finally saw where they were coming from. The person had a scarcity mindset; something I have a hard time relating to since I have an abundance mindset.

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