The Hidden Cost of Growth: Why Scaling Up Can Break Your Company Culture

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-23

Erik Vermeulen has spent more than 20 years helping organizations figure out what makes teams tick. He's also led expeditions through some of the most unforgiving environments on the planet. That combination—boardroom strategy meets desert crossing—gives him a unique lens on why rapid growth so often erodes the very culture that made a company successful in the first place. In this exclusive interview with the Motivational Speakers Agency, Vermeulen, Managing Director of Ridgeline Consulting, sat down with Tabish Ali to unpack what business leaders can learn from expedition leadership, why high-performing teams need a clear beginning and end, and why your company's growth might be quietly dismantling its cultural foundation. ### What Expeditions Teach Us About Uncertainty Vermeulen's first insight comes from an unexpected place: the definition of adventure itself. "For a long time, we thought adventure was defined by a set of activities—climbing a mountain, crossing a desert," he explains. "But we found that adventure actually refers to any undertaking where the outcome is uncertain." That's life. That's business. And yet, most leaders spend enormous energy trying to mask that uncertainty with rituals, routines, and structures that create the illusion of control. "We have no certainty about whether we're going to be around tomorrow to meet our sales targets or lead our teams," Vermeulen says. "When I lead expeditions into unknown territories, there's a high degree of uncertainty. That's why adventure is such a powerful lens through which to look at leadership and behavior." The takeaway? Stop pretending you can eliminate uncertainty. Instead, learn to operate within it. ### What Separates Great Teams from Groups of Talented Individuals According to Vermeulen, two things distinguish genuinely high-performing teams from collections of skilled people working toward the same goal. **The first is culture**—the unwritten rules that govern how a team operates. "What is accepted? What isn't? What behaviors take us toward what we want to achieve, and what takes us away from it?" he asks. "Great teams are very clear about what is tolerated and what is not." **The second is more controversial:** great teams know where they start and where they end. "Often in corporate teams, we're a group of people who work together year in and year out, chasing the next target or the next deal," Vermeulen notes. "Really great teams have the ability to set a specific goal, follow the process to achieve it, and then reset." In other words, great teams have a beginning and a definite end before they tackle the next challenge. They don't just keep running on the same treadmill indefinitely. > "Growth is where your problem starts in terms of culture." — Erik Vermeulen ### Why Growth Dilutes Culture—and What to Watch For Every organization has some form of growth metric that defines it. Bigger than last year. Better than last year. More sales. More output. More of whatever it is you build. But according to Vermeulen, that relentless push for growth is exactly where cultural problems begin. He uses a simple metaphor: cordial. "The glass is the structure that allows us to do business," he explains. "We add the cordial—the culture, the people, the way we do things. But when you keep pouring more water in—more people, more processes, more layers—the cordial gets diluted. It doesn't taste the same anymore." As organizations scale, the informal rules that once guided behavior get buried under new hires, new systems, and new priorities. The culture that made the company distinctive becomes watered down—sometimes to the point where long-time employees don't recognize the place anymore. ### What Leaders Should Watch For as They Scale Vermeulen suggests leaders keep a close eye on a few warning signs: - **Decision-making slows down.** What used to take a conversation now takes a committee. - **New hires don't absorb the unwritten rules.** They follow the handbook, not the culture. - **Accountability blurs.** Everyone assumes someone else is handling it. - **The team loses its rhythm.** There's no clear beginning, middle, or end to projects—just an endless grind. The antidote isn't to stop growing. It's to be intentional about preserving what made the company work in the first place—and to give teams the clarity and closure they need to perform at their best. As Vermeulen puts it, great teams aren't just talented. They're clear. They know what's expected. They know when they've won. And they know when it's time to reset and go again.