Here's what I'd build now, before the growth makes it harder.

I asked a group of leaders recently:

If your business doubled in the next two years, what would break first?

The answers came quickly.

Culture and innovation.  Quality and customer experience.  Getting the right people ready fast enough.

One leader said it can take three to six months to get someone fully up to speed today.

I shared some of this on LinkedIn last week, but I want to go one step further here.  What would I build now to keep those things from breaking later?

If it's culture and innovation, I'd start by getting clear on who you are as an organization and how that should show up in the way the business operates every day.

That includes how leaders lead, how decisions get made, what ownership looks like, what you value, and how you think about innovation.  You have to take a stand on what innovation means in your organization.  Where do you want people challenging the way things are done?  What makes an idea worth pursuing?  What are the boundaries that keep innovation connected to where the business is going?

Then build those expectations into hiring, onboarding, leadership, and how new ideas get surfaced and moved forward.  Culture and innovation become part of how the business operates, not something you're hoping people pick up along the way.

If it's quality and customer experience, I'd map the entire journey from the customer's point of view.

Start with the first interaction and follow it all the way through.  Look at every touchpoint, handoff and wait, where the customer has to ask what's next, and where the experience depends on one person remembering to make something happen.

Then look at that same journey at twice the volume.  The places that become harder, slower or less personal are the places I'd start redesigning now.

And there are so many more ways to do that today without losing the human part of the experience.  We can automate reminders, follow-ups, handoffs and other important touchpoints so we know they're happening, while being thoughtful about the moments where a real person should show up.  Done well, technology doesn't have to make the customer experience less personal.  It can create more room for your people to be human where it is most important.  That is going to separate some businesses in the coming months.

And if it takes three to six months to get someone fully up to speed, I'd look at the structure around the person before assuming that's simply how long it takes.

Start with what they should know, own and be able to do by the end of their first 30-60-90 days, each one has milestones.  Build the hiring process, onboarding, access to knowledge and decision authority around getting them there.

Structure is what shortens the runway, not better luck with who you hire.

You can take any one of these ideas and start working on it now.  But you'll quickly find they don't stay separate.

Your culture affects who you hire.  Who you hire affects the customer experience.  The experience you want to deliver determines what your people and processes need to do.  Innovation determines how you keep improving.  Technology changes how the work gets done, and your leadership and decision structure determines how much can move without everything coming back to the you.

It all works together.

And this is where we have an enormous opportunity right now.

For a long time, growth meant adding more.  More people, meetings, more layers and work for leaders to carry.  We built systems slowly, learned through trial and error and often didn't know something needed to change until the business was already feeling the weight of it.

We don't have to build that way anymore.

We know more now.  We have better technology.  AI can accelerate work that used to take weeks or months.  And we can design many of these systems before growth puts so much pressure on them.

Even if youre already in the middle of growth, there is value in stepping back long enough to look at how the business is operating.  Sometimes you have to stop adding to what already exists, rebuild a few critical pieces, and then move forward from a much stronger place.

That's what I've been mapping out for The Modern Business OS™.

I'm taking the lessons from years of building, growing and rebuilding businesses and laying out the places I know we need to stop and look. We'll work through them in the right order and build what your business needs for growth today.

It's the roadmap I wish I'd had: what I've learned the long way, what I would do differently today, and the tools we now have to build it faster.

The goal is simple: growth should't automatically make the business heavier or make your life harder.

There is a different way to build today.

Amy

P.S. The founding cohort of The Modern Business OS™ begins September 22nd.  12 spots.  If you're growing now, or preparing for what's next, and know the way the business operates needs to catch up, reply and let's talk.

Your Kitchen Doesn't Have to Be Pinterest-Worthy

We have a funny habit of making cooking harder than it needs to be.

We think a "good" home-cooked meal requires a recipe, a fully stocked fridge, an hour of free time, and everything made from scratch.

It doesn't.

One of my favorite ways to make weeknight meals easier is the 3-2-1 grocery method:

3 proteins + 2 starches + 1 batch of greens

That's it.  Start with a few building blocks and let the meals come together throughout the week.

Try this:
3 proteins: 
rotisserie chicken, salmon, eggs

2 starches:

rice, naan bread

1 batch of greens
roasted broccoli, OR bagged salad

Now you have options without having to reinvent dinner every night.  
Chicken + rice + broccoli one night.
Salmon naan pockets another night.
Eggs stir-fried rice another night.

And here's the part I really want you to hear...

Let the grocery store help you.

Convenience foods aren't a wellness failure.  In fact, sometimes they're exactly what makes cooking at home possible.

A few of my favorites kitchen heroes:

• Rotisserie chicken

• Salad kits

• Pre-made hummus

• Canned tuna

• Frozen stir-fry blends

• Steam-in-bag veggies

• Pre-made pico de gallo

• Good vinaigrettes (check the refrigerated section!)

• Refrigerated pizza dough or naan bread

The goal isn't to cook everything from scrach.

The goal is to make it easier to feed yourself.

Wellness doesn't always look like a perfectly planned meal or a Sunday afternoon spent meal prepping.  Sometimes it looks like opening the fridge at 6pm and having enough pieces to make dinner without starting from zero.

Build your kitchen to support you!

What's New

The Modern Business OS™ Founding Cohort begins September 22

12 leaders. 12 weeks. One goal: redesign how your business operates for what's possible now and where you're going next.

By the new year, you'll have a stronger team, a customer experience built for today's expectations, AI and technology doing real work, clearer ownership, and a business that can grow without adding equal complexity or exhaustion.

I've spent 25+ years learning where businesses start to break as they grow, what I would build differently today, and what we can now do faster with tools we simply didn't have before.

I've turned those lessons into the frameworks and tools I wish I'd had, and inside this cohort, I'm handing them to you.

Not to study. To use on your actual business, with me in the room, so you can skip years of trial and error and build differently now.

If serious growth is ahead, don't wait for it to expose what your business has outgrown. Build the business that can carry it.

12 spots.  Book a call  to see if this is the right room for you.