Scaling-up Principles for 10 - 100 journey

Having served as People Leader in high-growth setups, I have seen multiple faultlines (similar to tech debts), that unintentionally get built during growth/scale-ups phases. Would like to cover a few of them in this post.

• As the setup grows multi-folds across each of levels, being a People Leader, apart from keeping an eye on critical human capital metrics (Alignment, Discretionary Efforts, Contribution, Impact v/s. Performance v/s. Potential etc.), 2 key metrics that I closely track are: Speed of Execution, Decision making and Startup DNA Resonance. The former metric is mission-critical ensuring that scalability does not impede/decelerate the speed of conducting business. Startup DNA resonance is to not get transformed to Corporate DNA (with processes, hierarchies & bottlenecks) in the unintended of ways. With most of high growth funded setups, I have found these vulnerabilities, to drive more order, however, the objective is to move from chaos to controlled chaos, rather than complete order, key to having multiplier effect while scaling-up.
• Though operational, but still very pertinent, defining roles (different from designations) on Impact & keeping them fluidic in going from Series A to Series D, with flow of work (& not Designation hierarchies) seamlessly happening between roles appropriate to Impact expectations  – In one of my earlier orgs, the CTO would spend 60% of daily time being hands-on, similarly, in a Series C funded product tech company, we had 8 levels (between Entry role & CXO) and it got increased by 2 more in middle management (In both the cases, we had to raise a strong red flag for corrective action, as these could be hugely detrimental to org effectiveness over long term) . Both of these were strong faultlines that would inevitably come to bite in the longer run. Ensuring that people are not doing work worth 1 to 2 levels down their role, similarly, the promoted folks are not doing the same/similar work when promoted to the next levels. Impact is the key metric for role growth, & having right people driven to create impact is the key.
• Good Team + Great Culture = Great Product (I reiterate this on a daily basis to my teams & self ). Over last decade, I have worked with this hypothesis (& the reverse of Great Team + Good Culture = Great Product is not true) & most times this self-fulfilling prophecy has been validated. Going from Seed to Series C, a great culture is setting a mix of right behaviors with incentivizations & nudges (Behaviors like Ownership Accountability, Problem-Solving, Collaboration + Over Communication, Going above & beyond etc)  built on pillars of Empowerment, Transparency, Collaborative Leadership, Building Trust & Growing others. The key is to make each of these elements measurable (& incentivization of it) at micro level, with corrective mechanisms of 1-1 feedback, continuous feedbacks & developmental interventions.
• Rewards philosophy with ‘making each other successful’ proposition - Underrated though, but yet very powerful at micro level, getting this right, sets in the multiplier effect due to hard-reinforcement of monetary benefits. On the rewards philosophy, my 2 cents is to keep a balance of Intrinsic motivation (Purpose, Problem statement, Impact, Culture, Social capital of trust, camaraderie etc) v/s. Extrinsic motivation (Compensation, Benefits etc). Most of the hyperscale-up org’s get this wrong, as they end up in rewarding a few people consistently creating individual heroes & role models. This creates a Zero-Sum game with Winners take it all approach. Going from Series A to Series D needs everybody to step-up, grow & make each other successful, rather than making themselves successful. Hence, rewarding teams which are hitting the ball out of the