Why Growth Promises Fail, and Five Traps Companies Should Avoid
Malgorzata is a Finance and Operations executive with over 20 years of global experience helping organizations navigate growth and transformation across Europe and the U.S. She holds a PhD from Télécom SudParis, a leading French university.
No matter how many experts work on startup strategy, a private equity deal, or a product relaunch, there is often a similar pattern of reality versus promises. Companies lay out aggressive growth trajectories, but the reality is often harsh. In my experience, similar risks consistently materialize and slow down the trajectory.
Trap 1: The timeline illusion
In business, there are essentially two dimensions that count: time and money, and the two are strongly correlated. Money often arrives later than planned because time expands beyond expectations. And when the runway or investors’ financial patience is over, the deal is also over. Delays can be caused by many factors, but the following are the most common:
Salesforce onboarding
There is often an assumption that sales will explode as soon as reps hit the ground. This is rarely true. First of all, it can be challenging to find sales representatives who have experience with your type of product. Secondly, even when hired, some may underperform, onboard slowly, or need to be replaced. Assume they will perform at 80% on average.
Manufacturing readiness
Equipment delivery, installation, validation, supply chain lead times… Each step is interdependent, and a delay in one area cascades into all others. This translates into missed revenue and rapid cash burn. Do not plan for technical operations to go perfectly; expect several delays.
Legal negotiations
Legal is often perceived as the final step before closing the deal. We tend to forget that even when all key deal parameters have been agreed upon, lawyers are passionate about negotiating redlines. And it can take weeks, if not months.
Regulatory approvals
Agency approvals are often delayed due to economic, geopolitical, or simple workforce constraints. There is rarely an adequate buffer in place to absorb such delays, even though they are often critical to success.
Trap 2: Internal vs. External expertise
Complex transitions require people who have seen similar operations before. Consultants bring strong external benchmarks but rarely know the business deeply. Internal teams are capable, but they may be navigating such a transition for the first time. You need both perspectives. Sometimes, due to confidentiality constraints, especially in the M&A space, it is difficult to involve internal teams, particularly on the operations side such as IT, regulatory, or manufacturing. It is critical to identify areas where insufficient internal assessment could jeopardize the business case and to seek these experts’ opinions.
Trap 3: The hidden scope problem
Since you do not always have the perfect mix of internal and external expertise, many smaller tasks, particularly on the back-office side, are overlooked from both bandwidth and budget perspectives. This can have significant consequences during execution. A small IT blocker can have disproportionate consequences, or significant procurement costs may be required to operationalize the new business. As such, post-deal integrations usually demand more funds and resources than we think. Finding yourself stuck with no budget or team to deliver the promise is not a position you want to be in. Have a checklist by function, including back-office.
Trap 4: The high-performer trap
Because workloads during transitions grow quickly, things can become overwhelming. Every organization has its “go-to” people: the high performers who always deliver. In tough times, these people become the backbone of execution. Top talent does not mind working hard. What they struggle with is working hard and failing for reasons outside their control. You risk losing your strongest performers at such critical moments, when effort no longer correlates with outcomes. Do not let your top talent take responsibility for insufficiently planned and budgeted execution. This is the high-performer trap.
Trap 5: The optimism bias
When launching a new project or idea, it is a natural tendency to present it under the most optimistic scenario in order to secure buy-in. However, if topline promises fail to follow, the room to maneuver narrows. Opportunities to cut costs and keep the ship afloat diminish, especially since the major spending items are usually related to sales and marketing. Cutting there will put topline at risk even more. Sometimes, due to cash constraints or the predefined capital commitment of an investor, the full project collapses or the shareholder decides to pull the plug to prevent further losses. To prevent this, ensure you have a realistic worst-case scenario.
Anchor your plan in transparency and realistic buffers
Interestingly, a Harvard Business Review study analyzing more than 30,000 entrepreneurial loan requests found that negatively worded pitches were funded faster, carried lower interest rates, and defaulted less often than neutral or overly positive ones. Stakeholders expect realism. They have seen hundreds of business cases and usually identify key risks quickly. Addressing them openly allows you to incorporate buffers and explain how you intend to manage them. It is always preferable to be in an “underpromise and overdeliver” scenario rather than “overpromise and underdeliver.” Transparency builds trust and demonstrates business maturity.
Read more from Malgorzata Guyot
Malgorzata Guyot, International Finance Executive
Malgorzata is a Finance and Operations executive with over 20 years of global experience helping organizations navigate growth and transformation across Europe and the United States. She has worked with both publicly listed and private equity–backed companies, supporting leadership teams through periods of change, expansion, and complexity.
Her career has taken her across multiple countries and cultures, shaping a global perspective and a practical, people-centered approach to leadership. Today, she advises executives and boards on building resilient organizations, strengthening governance, and making better strategic decisions.
Malgorzata holds a PhD from Télécom SudParis, a leading French university.
