The Hidden Trade-Off: How Scaling Up Can Erode Your Company's Core

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-23

Ever wonder why some companies feel so different after they hit a big growth spurt? That vibrant energy that made them special seems to fade. It's a paradox: the very success you're chasing can weaken the culture that got you there in the first place. That's exactly what we explored with Erik Vermeulen. He's a behavioral strategist and Managing Director at Ridgeline Consulting, with over 20 years of experience advising organizations on culture, leadership, and performance. His unique perspective comes from blending corporate strategy with years of leading real-world expeditions through some of the most demanding environments on Earth. ### What Expedition Leadership Teaches Us About Business Uncertainty One of the biggest challenges for any leader, especially in startups, is navigating uncertainty. Erik frames it through a powerful lens: adventure. "For a long time, we thought adventure was just about climbing a mountain or going on an expedition," he explains. "But we found its essence is simpler: it's any undertaking where the outcome is uncertain. That is life. That is business." We build routines and structures to mask that uncertainty, to make us feel safe. But the truth is, we have no real certainty about tomorrow's sales targets or next quarter's team. Leading groups into literal unknown territories taught Erik that embracing this reality, rather than hiding from it, is key to resilient leadership. ### The Two Things That Separate Great Teams From Good Ones So, what actually makes a team click? According to Erik, two main factors set truly high-performing teams apart from just a group of talented individuals. - **Culture is the unwritten rulebook.** Great teams are crystal clear about what behaviors are accepted and what aren't. They know which actions move them toward their goal and which ones pull them away. It's about shared understanding, not just a poster on the wall. - **Teams need a defined beginning and end.** This one's more controversial. Erik argues that corporate teams often just roll from one target to the next, year after year. Truly great teams, however, can set a specific goal, achieve it, and then *reset*. They have a clear finish line before tackling the next challenge. This creates focus and prevents burnout. ### Why Growth Dilutes Culture (and How to Spot It) Here's the core of the issue. Every organization wants to grow—to be bigger, better, and sell more. But Erik points out that **growth is where your cultural problems often begin**. He uses a simple metaphor to explain: think of your strong, distinctive company culture as a concentrated cordial. The glass you put it in is your business structure. Now, as you grow, you keep pouring water (new people, processes, scale) into that same glass. What happens? The flavor—your core culture—gets weaker and more diluted with every addition. Leaders need to watch for this dilution as they scale. Are your core values still the guiding force in decisions, or are they becoming just nice-sounding words? Is the "how we do things here" getting lost in the rush to hit new targets? It's a silent process, but it can fundamentally change what made your company successful. The pace of change isn't slowing down. Erik's final insight is that leaders must help their teams adapt to this constant acceleration, not by clinging to old rituals, but by fostering the clarity and resilience he saw in both great expeditions and great businesses. The goal isn't to eliminate uncertainty, but to build teams that can thrive within it.