The balancing act: growing up without growing old

How mature companies keep their hunger

In the earlier articles in this series, I wrote about the forces that shape a founder-led, PE-backed organisation as it scales: holding on to the founder’s spark, translating intent when pressure rises and keeping ambition, execution and long-term value aligned. There is another dimension that matters just as much, although it tends to reveal itself later. A company can grow up without growing old.

Some organisations reach maturity and become sharper, clearer and more confident. Others harden. They become cautious, inward-looking, perhaps a little too pleased with their own systems. The difference is rarely about strategy. It is almost always about energy.

The question is simple enough: how do you keep the hunger of a young company when you no longer have the excuses of youth

Curiosity as a leadership habit

Start-ups are driven by curiosity. People ask questions constantly, partly because there is no alternative and partly because everything feels possible. As the business matures, roles become defined, processes appear and curiosity becomes optional. Leaders stop wandering into problems that are not technically theirs. They wait for information rather than going to find it.

Most organisations do not notice this shift. They call it professionalism. In truth, it is the early sign of creative atrophy.

A Chair cannot manufacture curiosity, but they can protect the conditions that allow it to flourish. They can encourage leaders to spend time with customers, not only with dashboards. They can ask questions that cut across silos. They can challenge assumptions that have settled too quickly.

Curiosity fades quietly… and returns the same way.

The difference between scarcity and fear

There is a particular mindset that emerges in high-growth environments where resources are tight. Some leaders see scarcity as an invitation to rethink the problem. Others freeze. They wait for certainty or capital or headcount, and in that waiting they lose momentum.

The leaders who thrive under scarcity are not reckless. They are simply willing to experiment without waiting for the perfect conditions. They will pilot an idea with one customer, or repurpose a team for a month, or cut a process that is slowing the organisation down.

You can usually spot them because they talk about possibilities rather than constraints.

The Chair’s role is to notice who is energised by creative constraint and who is paralysed by it. Not to judge either group, but to make sure the organisation is led by people who can move when conditions are imperfect.

They always are.

Creative reallocation and the quiet ROI

One of the biggest misconceptions in scaling businesses is that innovation requires more capital. More investment, more people, more time. Sometimes that is true, but often the real breakthroughs come from reallocating what already exists.

I once watched a company shift two underutilised teams into a joint “problem-solving sprint” for six weeks. The result changed the trajectory of the product roadmap. Another organisation removed a legacy reporting process and freed enough leadership bandwidth to fix a performance issue that had lingered for years.

These actions rarely appear in Board papers. They do not fit neatly into financial models. Yet their ROI is unmistakable.

A Chair can encourage this mindset simply by asking a different set of questions.
“What could we stop doing?”
“What would we try if we could not hire another person?”
“Where is effort exceeding impact?”

These sound like operational questions. They are actually cultural ones.

Bold bets without bravado

In founder-led companies, bold bets often come naturally at the start. The entire business is a bet. As the company grows and governance strengthens, people become more careful. Sometimes too careful. They do not want to disappoint the Board. They do not want to jeopardise a forecast. They do not want to make the wrong call.

The irony is that the best mature organisations are usually the ones still willing to take measured risks. Not wild gambles, but thoughtful, bounded experiments.

A Chair can help here by framing risk as part of the organisation’s identity rather than a deviation from it. You give permission to explore. You remind people that discipline and imagination are not opposites. You make it clear that the absence of risk is not the presence of wisdom.

Recognising when the company is becoming “old”

Age in an organisation is not measured in years. It shows up in behaviour. Decision-making becomes slower. Meetings become longer. People defend processes rather than outcomes. The founder starts hearing versions of “that’s not how we do it here.” Managers define success by avoiding mistakes rather than creating value.

The company has not lost its ability. It has lost its nerve.

These are the moments when the Chair must intervene gently but firmly. Not with criticism… with curiosity.
“When did we stop experimenting?”
“What decision would we make if we were still ten people in a room?”
“Are we solving the problem or managing the process?”

These questions create movement. They remind people that maturity is meant to improve judgement, not limit possibility.

Growing up well

When a company grows up well, you can feel it. It has discipline, but not rigidity. Structure, but not bureaucracy. Confidence, but not complacency. People understand the destination and are still willing to challenge the route. Leaders think in decades but operate with the urgency of months.

The Chair cannot manufacture this balance, but they can help hold it. They can keep the founder’s spark alive, translate intent when tensions rise and bring people back to the shared destination when they drift.

And, occasionally, they can remind the organisation of a truth that is easy to forget: maturity is optional. Curiosity is not.