Why Growth Quietly Erodes the Culture That Built Your Business

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-23

### The Hidden Cost of Scaling Up This exclusive interview with Erik Vermeulen was conducted by Tabish Ali of the Motivational Speakers Agency. Erik Vermeulen is a behavioural strategist and Managing Director of Ridgeline Consulting, with more than 20 years advising organisations on culture, leadership and performance. He also draws on years of leading expeditions through demanding environments, where uncertainty is unavoidable rather than theoretical. That combination shapes his approach to organisational behaviour. Erik examines how people make decisions under pressure, what separates effective teams from groups of individuals, and why rapid growth can gradually weaken the culture that made a company distinctive in the first place. In this interview, Erik discusses what expedition leadership can teach businesses about uncertainty, the conditions high-performing teams need to succeed, why company culture often becomes diluted during growth and how leaders can help people adapt as the pace of change accelerates. ### What Expeditions Teach Us About Uncertainty **Question 1:** What have leading expeditions in uncertain environments taught you about how business leaders should operate when outcomes are unpredictable? **Erik Vermeulen:** One of the big challenges in business today is how we deal with uncertainty. Many years ago, when I co-authored my first book on how adventure experiences can be used to build teams, we looked at the essence of adventure. For a long time, we thought adventure was defined by a set of activities or an endeavour, such as climbing a high mountain or taking a team on an expedition. But we found that adventure actually refers to any undertaking where the outcome is uncertain. That is life. That is business. We tend to mask the uncertainty of life and business through the rituals, routines and structures we create around ourselves and our teams. But we have no certainty about whether we're going to be around tomorrow, next week, next month or next year to meet our sales targets or lead our teams. When I lead expeditions into unknown territories, where people are walking across a desert or climbing a mountain, there is a high degree of uncertainty. That's why I believe adventure is such a powerful lens through which to look at leadership, teams and behaviour. ### The Two Pillars of High-Performing Teams **Question 2:** What distinguishes a genuinely high-performing team from a collection of talented individuals working towards the same target? **Erik Vermeulen:** There are two main things that separate great teams from groups of individuals. The first is culture: the unwritten rules within which the team operates. What is accepted? What isn't accepted? What behaviours take us towards what we want to achieve, and what takes us away from it? Great teams are very clear about what is tolerated and accepted within the team and what is not. The second aspect 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. Really great teams have the ability to set a particular goal, follow the process that allows them to achieve it, and then reset afterwards. Great teams have a beginning and a very definite end to their teamwork before they reset and tackle the next challenge. ### How Growth Dilutes Culture **Question 3:** Why does rapid growth so often dilute company culture, and what should leaders be watching for as an organisation scales? **Erik Vermeulen:** Every organisation has some form of growth metric that defines it. They want to be bigger than last year, better than last year, make more sales or build more of whatever it is they build. Growth is where your problem starts in terms of culture. I use the metaphor of cordial to explain it. The glass is the structure that allows us to do business. We add the problem... > "Growth is where your problem starts in terms of culture." — Erik Vermeulen As companies scale, they often add layers of management, processes, and systems that can inadvertently dilute the very culture that fueled their initial success. Leaders must be vigilant for signs of cultural drift: - **Increased bureaucracy** that slows decision-making - **Hiring for skills over cultural fit** as urgency to fill roles grows - **Erosion of unwritten rules** that once guided behaviour - **Communication breakdowns** between teams and leadership ### What Leaders Can Do To preserve culture during growth, leaders should: - **Articulate and reinforce core values** consistently - **Model desired behaviours** and hold others accountable - **Create rituals and stories** that celebrate cultural heroes - **Regularly assess cultural health** through surveys and feedback - **Integrate culture into onboarding** and performance management By treating culture as a strategic asset, not an afterthought, leaders can scale their business without losing the essence that made it special.