Today, nearly all failures to perform in the marketplace can be traced to pre-existing, deeper root causes within an organization that could have been identified and addressed by leadership earlier. One of the biggest causes of these internal breakdowns is complexity. We refer to this as the “growth paradox,” which means: growth creates complexity, which kills growth.
Complexity creeps in over time like barnacles accumulating on a boat and reduces the focus on the core business, causing organizations to under-invest in, or even lose, what made them special in the first place. It also allows the rise of internal bureaucracy which slows down decision-making and the ability to adapt, and shifts power to people who may never have served a customer or worked more directly with the product. This is how companies lose ground-level instincts and stop innovating.