Short answer: you do not structure because you have grown, you structure in order to grow. Every new client and every new hire adds complexity; if the process does not exist before the load, the firm is not scaling its business, it is scaling its friction. Revenue that doubles on a shaky organisation can double the problems as well.
The short version
- The observation: every client and every hire adds complexity, mechanically.
- The three costs named: miscommunication, work redone twice, and clients irritated by delays and inconsistencies.
- The illusion: it feels like growth, it is dispersion, and it burns profitability.
- The order of operations: formalise the processes before adding the load.
- The image: growing without structure is running with your shoelaces undone.
Why complexity grows faster than revenue
Growth in an organisation is not linear on the organisational side. One more client is not one more file: it is a new set of billing rules, a new reporting rhythm, one more person to keep informed. One more colleague is not a payroll line: it is one more timesheet to collect, one more skill to place, one more manager to align.
That is why firms pass through thresholds rather than climbing evenly. We set those thresholds out in detail in The growth caps of an organisation: at each one, an informal practice that worked perfectly well stops working overnight, without warning.
The three costs of disorganised growth
| What happens | What it actually costs |
|---|---|
| Miscommunication | Unbillable time spent re-establishing who is doing what |
| Duplicated work | Two people produce the same data, and the two versions diverge |
| Delays and inconsistencies on the client side | Disputes, then later payments, then lost credibility |
The second row costs the most over time and shows the least in the moment. When two people each keep their own version of the capacity plan or of a fixed-price burn-down, the problem is not the time spent maintaining them: it is that when a decision is due, neither version has authority. That is precisely the data repository problem.
What "formalising" actually means
Formalising is not writing procedures nobody will read. In an organisation the foundation comes down to four decisions, and they are taken once.
- One repository for time, projects and invoicing, so two figures can no longer contradict each other.
- A named approval chain: who approves a timesheet, an expense claim, a quote, and within what time.
- Written billing rules rather than rules reconstructed from memory at every month end.
- A short, regular ritual looking at the same numbers, described in Steering without indicators.
The right moment to lay that foundation is the moment it still looks oversized. Once the load has arrived, nobody structures anything: they fight fires, which is exactly the situation the video describes.
Video transcript
Full transcript, translated from the French and lightly tidied for reading.
With every new client, with every new colleague, your organisation gets more complex. And without solid processes, you multiply the mix-ups, the misunderstandings, the emergencies.
Disorganised growth has a price: miscommunication that wastes time, duplicated tasks because everyone redoes what someone else has already done, and clients who get irritated by delays and inconsistencies. You think you are growing, but really you are dispersing your energy and burning your profitability. Revenue that doubles on a shaky organisation can double your problems too.
The answer? Formalise your processes before you add load. A clear foundation that aligns teams, reduces friction and protects the client relationship. Because growing without structure is like running with your shoelaces undone: you go faster, but you always end up falling.
Read next
- The growth caps of an organisation : the thresholds where informal practice stops holding.
- The data repository : why two versions of a figure cost more than none.
- Integrated system vs best-of-breed : choosing an IT system that will not cap your growth.
Frequently asked questions
At what size should an organisation start to structure?
The useful question is not size but variety: the moment to structure arrives when nobody can hold every live engagement in their head any more. Depending on the firm that happens somewhere between fifteen and forty people, and earlier still where billing models are mixed.
Should you structure before hiring, or the other way round?
Before. A process laid on a team of ten is learned in a week; the same process imposed on a team of thirty that has already formed its habits is a change-management programme. The cost is not the same, and it never grows more slowly than headcount.
Does structuring necessarily mean buying tools?
No, but the tool is what stops the process eroding. A written rule holds as long as someone keeps repeating it; the same rule carried by an approval chain holds on its own, including in the weeks when nobody has time to repeat anything.
