How to Keep Calm and Culture While You Dey Grow

One particular kind of vertigo dey wey dey come with growth. You don hire the people wey you want. The numbers dey go the right way. But still, something wey you no fit really name don go thin. The room wey before dey feel like team now dey feel like building wey full of strangers. Decisions wey before na hallway conversation dey settle now dey take three meetings and nobody sure who dey decide. You get everything wey you ask for, and you dey more anxious pass how you be when money tight.

That feeling no be character flaw, and e no be proof say you dey do am wrong. Na wetin scaling dey really feel like from inside. The culture wey dey run on everybody to know everybody go stop to work the moment wey not everybody know everybody. The question for whoever dey lead na whether the thing wey make the place worth to build go survive the building of am.

Why growth dey thin out culture

For long time, your culture probably no dey written down anywhere. E dey live for proximity. People dey learn how dem dey do things by to sit near person wey sabi, by to overhear how dem take make hard call, by to absorb wetin dem dey celebrate and wetin dem dey quietly frown on. That dey work beautifully up to a point. E go stop to work when you start to add people faster pass how dem fit soak am up.

Na this mechanism dey catch teams unawares. When you hire quick, your newest people go often learn the culture from people wey join few months ago, wey learn am from people wey join few months before that. Each handoff dey lose small. Harvard Business Review don describe this dilution plain: for fast-growing company, recent hires go end up dey absorb the culture from other recent hires wey never fully absorb am themselves. Nobody decide to change anything. E just drift, one well-meaning new person at a time.

Ranjay Gulati, the Harvard Business School professor, dey use different word for wetin dey lost. E dey call am the company *soul*, the original sense of why the work matter, who e be for, and wetin e dey feel like to do am here. Him point na say companies no dey often lose this on purpose. Dem dey lose am through neglect, by to accept the story say to grow bigger simply need make you trade the spark for process. E no be so, but the trade dey happen by default unless person refuse to allow am.

Start with the calm, because na the thing wey dey travel

Before any of the structural fixes, na you dey first. Growth pressure dey catch like sickness for a way wey easy to underestimate. The people wey you dey lead dey read your face for every all-hands, every Slack reply, every time wey number come in soft. If you dey waka around dey vibrate with stress, you no dey keep that stress to yourself. You dey distribute am. A scaling team under a frightened leader dey make frightened decisions: e dey hoard information, e dey stop to take the small risks wey good work dey depend on, e dey play not to lose.

Na the unglamorous first move be this. Get your own nervous system steady enough so that wetin you hand the room na composure, no be alarm. That no mean to pretend say things dey fine when dem no dey. People fit smell that, and e dey cost you more trust pass wetin honesty go ever cost. E mean say you fit call a real problem without your voice to climb. You fit talk "this part hard and na this we dey do about am" from a settled place. Steadiness for the top dey buy steadiness everywhere downstream, and during growth that steadiness dey scarce.

Make the culture something wey person fit talk

The single most useful thing wey you fit do as you dey grow na to turn your culture from something wey people gats dey present to learn into something wey you fit really put into words. No be poster of adjectives. Behaviors.

Harvard Business Review guidance on scaling culture dey start exactly here: define your culture for terms of clear, observable behaviors, no be vague values. "We dey collaborative" no dey tell new hire anything. "When you disagree with decision, you go talk am for the room, no be for the hallway afterward" dey tell dem exactly wetin to do on Tuesday. The first na feeling wey na only old-timers fit decode. The second na something wey person wey join yesterday fit act on.

Small ways to make that real:

• Write down the small number of behaviors wey really define how good work dey happen here. Keep am short. Five things wey people go remember better pass twenty things wey dem no go remember.
• Use concrete language. Describe wetin person dey do, no be who dem be. "Dey share the rough draft early" dey survive growth. "Na team player" dey evaporate.
• Point to real examples. When person embody a value, talk am out loud and talk wetin dem do. Stories dey scale better pass slogans because people dey copy wetin dem see say dem reward.
• Build the culture into hiring and onboarding on purpose, instead of to dey hope say e go rub off. Wetin you dey screen for and wetin you dey celebrate for week one na the curriculum, whether you write am or not.

Keep people safe enough to tell you the truth

The quiet danger of growth na say the room go quiet right when you need am loud pass. New people never sabi say e safe to push back. Layers go appear between you and the work. Bad news get further to travel before e reach you, and more incentive to soft on the way.

Na here the research on psychological safety dey earn him keep. Amy Edmondson, wey don study teams for Harvard Business School for many years, define psychological safety as shared belief say you fit speak up (ask the question, admit the mistake, challenge the idea) without fear say dem go punish you or shame you. Her early work bring out something wey really no be wetin you go expect: the better hospital teams wey she study report *more* errors, no be less. Dem no dey make more mistakes. Dem dey safe enough to bring dem out. Silence no be excellence. Silence na the problem wey dey hide.

Growth dey often erode this exactly when e matter. So protect am deliberately. The moves smaller pass how you go think. Ask real questions and mean dem. When person tell you something wey you no wan hear, your first reaction na the whole ballgame. React with anger once and you go teach a roomful of people to stop to tell you things. Talk am plain when you do something wrong; leader wey own a mistake dey give everybody permission to do the same. Treat a flagged problem as a gift, because na so e be. The team wey fit tell you the truth for fifty people na the only kind wey dey survive to be two hundred.

Freedom inside a frame

Most of the bureaucracy wey dey suffocate growing company dey show up dey wear the costume of safety. Dem go add process after every mistake. Approvals go pile up. The freedom wey make the early days feel alive go dey traded, one cautious rule at a time, for the illusion of control.

Gulati phrase for the alternative na *freedom within a framework*, real discretion inside clear boundaries. The framework na the small set of things wey really no fit bend: the values, the few decisions wey gats come to you, the lines wey nobody dey cross. Inside that, people dey get to think and choose and own their work. Get this balance wrong for either direction and you go pay for am. Too small frame and growth go turn to chaos. Too much and you don hire capable adults come hand dem script, and the best of dem go leave to go somewhere wey dem go get to think again.

The instinct under pressure almost always na to add more frame. Resist am more often pass how you go give in to am.

When e heavy pass leadership problem

Sometimes the strain of scaling go stop to be about the company and start to be about you. Sleep na the first thing wey go. A low hum of dread wey no dey switch off on the weekend. To dey snap at people wey you care about, then to lie down dey wake about am. The sense say you dey hold something up wey dey too heavy to hold.

That one worth to take serious, and no be by to work harder. Founders and leaders dey carry a load wey easy to normalize until e don do real damage. If the pressure dey bleed into your sleep, your health, or the people wey you love, that na sign to talk to person: doctor, therapist, coach, a mate wey don pass through am. To reach for support no be confession say you no fit handle growth. Na how the people wey dey handle am for the long haul dey really do am.

The culture wey you dey try protect no ever really dey the handbook. E dey for how people dey treat each other when pressure dey on and nobody dey watch. The most direct way to keep am as you dey grow na to stay steady enough, and honest enough, so that e go get somewhere to live.

Sources

• Harvard Business Review, Scaling Culture in Fast-Growing Companies
• Harvard Business Review, When Scaling Your Start-Up, Don't Lose What Makes It Special
• Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, Four Steps to Build the Psychological Safety That High-Performing Teams Need