This is not something that happens in every company, but in my experience it occurs in most cases. The problem is that many companies want to grow for the wrong reason. What do I mean by this? It is true that by growing we achieve economies of scale, gain stronger negotiating power, and are able to offer better services at a lower cost. However, many companies decide to grow or scale simply in an attempt to fix their shortcomings, and this usually ends in disaster. Many companies have not refined their business model or have financial problems that only become bigger as they grow. So before scaling, I believe management should ask itself: do we clearly understand our business model? Are our finances in good shape? Or are we simply looking for a magic bullet to solve all our problems?
Having been in the Transportation Business at National Scale for the last 20 years, I have observed that the primary obstacle to scaling is a lack of clarity of responsibility between teams. As the volume of business increases, decisions fall into the cracks between Sales, Operations, and Finance teams; each team thinks someone else owns the outcome. The simplest solution is to have only one accountable owner for each core operational process, not a group of people. By assigning ownership to one individual for each of these processes, we have seen improved alignment between the leadership teams and operating metrics will be discussed weekly based on three metrics: On-Time Delivery, Margin Variance, and Client Escalations. With this simple framework in place, we have witnessed more rapid alignment among the leadership teams, resulting in significantly improved speed of execution and rapid turn-around time for feedback loops.
People often think they are all working together, but they're often confused about what they're working towards, because everyone is too busy doing, yet adding to the confusion. The fastest way to improve is to make decisions available to all team members. Simply schedule time every week for team leaders to discuss the three things that are "top priorities", what is not, and what trade-offs have been made in making those decisions. You don't need to create a strategy deck, just provide a consistent way for everyone to be on the same page in terms of decision making. When people understand how their decision fits into the overall plan, execution becomes much easier. Most of the time, confusion does not arise from lack of capability, rather from lack of context.