Scaling is a handover problem

I always think the relay is the most exciting event in athletics. Four exceptional runners can lose everything in a split second if they get one thing wrong, and that's their handover!

Speed and talent matter, but their baton change wins or loses the race.

I've often thought scaling a business isn't much different.

As a company grows, there comes a point where founders can no longer hold every customer, project or decision. The baton has to be passed, deliberately and consistently. As the company scales, there are more batons and more runners in the team.

That's where your operating model really matters.

A well-designed Target Operating Model creates clear handover points between teams. It builds the muscle memory that allows Operations, Customer Success and every other function to work together, without value creation getting lost in the transition.

When those handovers aren't clear, the symptoms will slow you down. Everyone and no-one owns the customer, and founders become a bottleneck. Good people work hard, but are not always running in the same direction.

If it feels like your teams are dropping the baton, or perhaps nobody wants to let go of it, it might not be a people problem. It may just be time to rethink how the race is being run. Let's talk about it?