There is a hard truth that comes with growing a business: the team that helped you get started may not be the team you need for what comes next.
That doesn’t mean they weren’t good enough. Early-stage businesses need people who can figure things out, wear multiple hats, and move quickly without much structure. However as a company grows, the work changes. You need stronger systems, clearer accountability, and people who can make decisions without everything running through the founder.
At some point, every growing company has to ask a difficult question: Is our team growing with the business?
The Right Person Can Be In The Wrong Seat
In Good to Great, Jim Collins introduces the idea of “First Who, Then What” Get the right people on the bus and make sure they are in the right seats.
The second part matters.
Sometimes you have a great person in a role they have outgrown. Sometimes the role has grown beyond their current capabilities. And sometimes the business now needs experience that simply wasn’t necessary when you started.
That doesn’t automatically mean someone needs to leave. The role may need to change, the employee may need support to grow into it, or the conversation about what is next may need to happen sooner rather than later.
We’ve talked about this on Say Less Unscripted as well. In our conversation with Indu Sanka, the idea of having the right people in the right seats came up as part of what happens when a company enters a new stage.
The seat that made sense three years ago may not be the right seat today.
Before You Decide It Is The Person, Ask Three Questions
1. Did the role change?
Maybe the employee didn’t suddenly become less capable. The business grew, but no one stopped to redefine what their job now requires. Make the new expectations clear before deciding they can’t meet them.
2. Can they grow into it?
Look beyond their current skill set. Can they take feedback, learn quickly, delegate, solve bigger problems, and take ownership without waiting for you? Don’t replace someone simply because they haven’t done something they have never been given the opportunity to do.
3. Is it the person or the seat?
Someone struggling in one role may thrive in another. Before you lose a good person, make sure you haven’t simply put them in the wrong place.
Loyalty Shouldn’t Keep Someone Stuck
This is where things get difficult. You remember who believed in the business early, who stayed late, and who did work that wasn’t in their job description because there wasn’t anyone else to do it.
The history should matter. However gratitude doesn’t require leaving someone in a role that no longer works from them or the business.
Sometimes loyalty means investing in someone’s development or moving them into a role where they are better positioned to succeed. Other times, it means having an honest conversation neither side particularly wants to have.
Avoiding that conversation isn’t loyalty, it is simply postponing a decision.
Founders Aren’t Exempt
There is another role that needs to be evaluated as the company grows: yours.
Research from McKinsey on companies moving from start-up to scale-up points to the same challenge for founders. As organizations grow, founders often have to delegate more, step back from day-to-day decisions, and develop leaders who can carry greater responsibility.
You can’t ask everyone around you to grow while continuing to lead exactly the way you did when there were three people on the team. The business may have outgrown some of your habits too.
Build For Where You Are Going
Before making your next hire, promotion, or organizational change, look 12 to 24 months ahead and ask:
What will this business require from us then that it doesn’t require today?
Then look at your team. Who is ready now? Who can grow into it? Who might be stronger in a different seat? Where is there a gap that needs someone new?
Those are better questions than simply asking who stays and who goes.
The people who helped you start deserve respect for what they helped build, and they deserve the opportunity to grow with it. But honoring the past doesn’t mean avoiding the decisions required for the future.
Develop the people who can grow. Move good people into the right seats. Fill the gaps you can’t develop. Make sure you are growing too.
That is how you build a team for what comes next.