Growing Pains or Poor Design?

Growth is something every leadership team strives for whether it's driven by acquisition, winning a major customer, expanding internationally or entering new markets, growth is usually a sign that a business is doing something right.

The challenge is that whilst growth can happen almost overnight, the way a business operates rarely evolves at the same pace.

Over the years, I've supported companies that have grown significantly through acquisitions, rapid expansion and major organisational change. From the outside, they looked incredibly successful -revenue had increased, capability had expanded and talented people had joined the business.

The challenge wasn't the people. Far from it.

The challenge was that every stage of growth had introduced new structures, systems, reporting lines and ways of working. Individually they all made sense but collectively, they created complexity.

Decision making had slowed, accountability became blurred, work often duplicated people efforts and focus were on different priorities. Frustration wasn't caused by a lack of capability; it was caused by good people trying to succeed within a company or team that had never evolved in the same way as the business around it.

It's something I've seen more than once and it certainly isn't limited to acquisitions. Rapid growth, mergers, TUPE transfers, significant restructures or even winning a major contract can all have the same effect. They expose weaknesses in an Org Design and Operating Model that may have worked perfectly well when the business was half the size.

It's Rarely About the People

When organisations reach this point, it's understandable that the conversation often turns to people. Do we need stronger leaders? Should we recruit additional capability? Is it time for another restructure?

Sometimes the answer is absolutely yes. As businesses grow, they often need new skills, fresh thinking and specialist expertise. I've been brought into businesses for exactly that reason.

However, introducing talented people into a business where accountability is unclear, governance has become inconsistent and ways of working differ across teams rarely addresses the underlying issue. More often than not, those individuals spend their time navigating complexity instead of creating value.

The first question shouldn't always be "Who do we need?". Sometimes it should be "Have we created an organisation that enables good people to succeed?"

Designing for What's Next

One of the reasons I enjoy organisation design is because it changes the conversation. Rather than asking "How do we solve today's problem?", it encourages leadership teams to ask:

"How does this business need to operate if we're going to achieve the next stage of growth?"

Looking back across the organisation redesigns I've led over the years, one thing has become increasingly clear.

Regardless of sector, ownership model or size, the organisations that navigated change most successfully weren't necessarily those with the biggest budgets or even the most talented people. They were the ones that took the time to step back, challenge how the business operated and deliberately build an organisation that was fit not only for today, but for where it wanted to be tomorrow.

In my experience, the strongest organisations aren't built around the challenges they're facing today. They're built around the challenges they haven't encountered yet. That means creating operating models that are simple enough to run, agile enough to adapt and scalable enough to grow.

Those company still changed—they always will. Markets evolve, customers change, acquisitions happen and priorities shift. The difference was that they rarely found themselves redesigning the business every couple of years because the foundations had been built with future growth in mind, rather than simply solving the immediate problem.

That thinking is increasingly reflected in wider research too with a 2026 McKinsey research finding that leading organisations are moving beyond structural change alone, focusing instead on building operating models that improve simplicity, speed and adaptability so they can respond more effectively to future change.

A Better Question

Growth should be celebrated. But the real test of whether your Organisational Design is future-proofed appropriately lies in your answer to the question:

“Are today's frustrations you have been feeling simply growing pains or are they signs that the business has outgrown the way it works?

Because, in my experience, businesses rarely outgrow their people - They outgrow the way they work.

Could this be an issue in your business?

Sometimes the hardest part is knowing what to look for before something becomes a bigger problem.

That’s why I created the CAPhr People Health Checks — practical self-assessments designed to help you take a step back, understand where you are today and spot the gaps, risks and opportunities that might need attention.

No lengthy consultancy exercise. No jargon. Just structured questions, practical guidance and clear next steps to help you work out what’s working, what isn’t and what to do about it.

Take a Health Check →