Originally aired May 14, 2026 on Extropy On AIr.
Growth is supposed to feel good, so why does it so often make everything harder? Speed itself is not the problem. Growing faster than your systems and processes can support is. In this episode, Kevin Zirkle and Mike Jasper of Extropy Advisors explain the speed trap and how to design for growth that lasts.
Listen to the full episode on the Extropy On AIr podcast page or on Spotify.
Key takeaways
- Growth doesn’t create entropy on its own. It exposes where your systems can’t handle the complexity that comes with it.
- Scaling before stabilizing spreads instability. Rolling out a process that isn’t working locally turns one problem into an organization-wide one.
- Speed is a multiplier. With a coherent system it amplifies performance, and with a fragmented one it amplifies breakdowns.
- Sustainable speed comes from structure: clear decision ownership, a stable process before expansion, and room to absorb new variables.
- Sometimes the fastest way forward is a strategic pause to reinforce the structure before pushing for more growth.
Why does growth make things harder?
Because growth adds complexity faster than most organizations redesign for it. Every new customer, business line or acquisition introduces variation into processes that were built for a smaller, simpler business.
Mike explained that most organizations grow into that complexity before they design for it. They don’t feel it happening, so they react by layering on processes, controls and tools one fix at a time. The business isn’t failing, but the systems are under strain.
That strain shows up as the same symptoms the entropy series has been tracking: more exceptions, more escalations, more reliance on a few go-to people who hold everything together, and more work happening outside the standard systems in spreadsheets and side processes.
What is the speed trap?
It’s when the same speed that drives growth starts accelerating decay. Organizations reward speed, and rarely does anyone get praised for slowing down. But as Mike put it, many organizations don’t struggle because they move too slowly. They struggle because they scale faster than their systems and processes can support.
A common pattern is scaling before stabilizing. In practice that looks like:
- Expanding processes that aren’t fully defined.
- Rolling out a system globally before it works in one region.
- Adding volume to workflows that already need manual intervention.
Kevin noted this is especially common in private equity backed companies, where the pressure to expand footprint and throughput moves faster than the operating model. The instinct is to keep moving and stabilize in the next phase, but that phase rarely comes. Teams go back to their day jobs, workarounds become permanent, and growth keeps adding pressure.
When is speed an advantage?
When the system is coherent. If decision paths are clear, data is reliable and processes are aligned, speed amplifies performance and lets you scale without breaking things.
The same lever works the other way, too. In a fragmented system, speed brings faster escalations, faster error propagation and faster breakdowns. That’s why leadership judgment matters so much: knowing when to push and when to step back and reinforce the structure. Slowing down can feel like falling behind, but it is often what lets you move faster later.
How do you design for sustainable speed?
Mike outlined three principles:
- Start with structure. Define how decisions are made as the organization scales, not just at a point in time. Who owns them, how information flows, and what gets standardized versus what stays flexible.
- Stabilize before you scale. Make sure a new process works consistently before expanding it. That doesn’t mean perfection, it means predictability. Exceptions will happen, but they shouldn’t be the norm.
- Build for adaptability. Growth always brings new variables, from compliance changes to new business lines. The goal isn’t to eliminate change, it’s to absorb it without breaking what works.
Organizations that get this right are often among the fastest movers, but their movement feels controlled. There are no decision bottlenecks, nobody questions the data, and processes don’t need constant intervention. When they get it wrong, everything is urgent, leaders get pulled into operational decisions, and growth feels like pressure instead of momentum.
What should leaders of fast-growing companies do now?
- Have an honest internal conversation. Can the current system handle more volume without adding friction? If not, don’t scale it yet.
- Find where growth has already added variability. Look at where exceptions are increasing and which decisions are slowing down. Start there.
- Align incentives. Make sure teams aren’t rewarded for outcomes that create complexity downstream.
- Give your team permission to slow down strategically. Not because they’re busy or nervous, but to take a deliberate pause and reinforce the structure.
In their words
“Speed is not the enemy, but speed without structure is the enemy.”
Kevin Zirkle, Director of Business Development, Extropy Advisors
“The goal isn’t to eliminate change. It’s to be able to absorb that without breaking the coherence.”
Mike Jasper, VP of Finance Transformation, Extropy Advisors
About the speakers
Kevin Zirkle is Director of Business Development at Extropy Advisors, where he works across Extropy’s partner ecosystem, matching organizations with the right technology and the right people to move transformation from the whiteboard into production. He also hosts Extropy On AIr’s series on corporate entropy, exploring how organizations drift toward disorder and how to build lasting structure instead. Mike Jasper is VP of Finance Transformation at Extropy Advisors, where he leads digital transformation and client success, working hands-on with clients to set success criteria, optimize their people, process and technology, and measure the results. He is also a regular voice on the show.
Frequently asked questions
Why does fast growth make a company harder to run?
Growth adds complexity. Every new customer, business line or acquisition introduces variation, and if processes were not designed to absorb it, that variation turns into exceptions, escalations, workarounds and reliance on a few key people.
What does “stabilize before you scale” mean?
It means making a new process work consistently before expanding it to more volume, regions or teams. The goal is predictability, not perfection: exceptions will still happen, but they should not be the norm.
Is speed bad for organizations?
No. Speed is a competitive advantage when decision paths are clear, data is reliable and processes are aligned. When the system is fragmented, speed multiplies the fragmentation instead, so errors and escalations spread faster.
Keep exploring
- More episodes of Extropy On AIr
- Previous in the series: Where Entropy Comes From: Silos, Incentives and Drift
- Next in the series: The Execution Gap: Why Great Strategies Fall Apart
- How we approach transformation: Why Extropy
Growing faster than your systems can keep up? Book a discovery call to talk through where growth is reinforcing your structure and where it is wearing it down.
