Why Most Scaling Strategies Fail, And What to Do Instead
- Brainz Magazine
- May 12
- 6 min read
Written by Joe Patneaude, Executive Coach
Joe Patneaude is an Executive Coach and creator of the STAR Scalability℠ Method. He helps business owners and leaders scale financial services firms efficiently. He is the author of Follow the STAR: Unlock Monumental Business Growth and a certified Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Practitioner.
Scaling a business should be a mark of success, but for many leaders, it becomes a turning point for unexpected setbacks. Too often, companies charge forward with growth plans that fail to consider a crucial element: the alignment between operational strategy and company values.
I’ve seen it firsthand. At one investment advisory firm, the leadership was proud of its tight-knit, high-touch culture. Their operations manager knew every client by name and remembered personal details that made every interaction feel meaningful. But as the firm grew, they added new staff without a clear operational plan or a way to preserve the culture they had built. What followed was a breakdown in client satisfaction, employee morale, and team cohesion. The result? Attrition, missed opportunities, and a full rollback of their scaling efforts.
Unfortunately, this isn’t rare. Many businesses struggle during the scale-up phase, not because their product or service is flawed, but because they lack a framework that supports both growth and identity. They fail to adapt their systems, team structure, and leadership strategy to the very change they’re pursuing. Even worse, in regulated industries like financial services, poor guidance from well-meaning coaches can lead to advice that violates compliance standards, causing even greater harm.
In this article, I’ll explore why conventional scaling advice so often fails and share an approach that prioritizes strategic alignment, operational clarity, and sustainable growth.
Why most scaling strategies fail
The firm I mentioned earlier isn’t alone. Many leaders pursue growth with the best intentions, only to find themselves stalled or worse, spiraling because the strategy they’re following isn’t really a plan. It’s a template. And while templates might look polished, they rarely account for the complexities of a firm’s current position, evolving goals, or cultural identity.
In my experience, scaling breaks down for a few key reasons:
1. Misalignment between growth and culture
Growth almost always introduces change, but without thoughtful communication, that change can unintentionally signal disrespect. I once worked with a Broker-Dealer acquired by a larger group seeking rapid expansion. Many of the original employees had spent decades building the firm and knew the business inside and out. But new hires, systems, and leadership priorities were brought in with no roadmap or explanation. Existing staff felt dismissed. Innovation slowed. A quiet resistance emerged not through sabotage, but through a shift in mindset: “good enough” became the new standard.
2. Lack of scalable systems and operational commitment
One advisor team I knew invested tens of thousands into technology and efficiency consultants to streamline their growing practice. But the leadership, brilliant at advising and marketing, refused to adopt the tools themselves. They insisted on duplicate paper processes, creating redundant workloads and growing staff frustration. Despite having the right infrastructure on paper, the lack of operational alignment caused burnout and turnover.
3. Unclear or unrealistic expectations
A regional manager overseeing hundreds of professionals regularly sets performance goals with no clear definition or structure, statements like “beat your last month” or “rank higher than your peers.” Celebrations of genuine progress were often undercut by public comparisons or moving targets. Over time, his team stopped striving for excellence and started questioning the motives behind the goals themselves. That erosion of trust can cripple any culture especially when leadership appears more focused on personal bonuses than team growth.
4. One-size-fits-all coaching and non-compliant advice
In regulated industries like financial services, template-based coaching isn’t just ineffective, it can be dangerous. I’ve seen coaches recommend website language or sales funnels that would trigger violations of the SEC’s Marketing Rule for Investment Advisors. One even recommended AI tools that were implemented without a compliance review, leading to policy breaches. When a coach lacks industry fluency, credibility suffers and leaders can unintentionally expose their firms to risk in the name of “innovation.”
These aren’t isolated mistakes. They’re the product of an industry-wide gap in how we approach growth. Without a framework that accounts for culture, compliance, communication, and clarity, scaling becomes a dangerous gamble or worse, a fevered dream disguised as strategy.
The shift: What successful scaling actually requires
The truth is, growth isn’t just about doing more; it’s about doing better, in a way that’s aligned with the business’s core identity. Sustainable scaling demands more than effort and ambition; it requires clarity, intentionality, and a willingness to evolve how we lead.
Here are a few of the most important mindset shifts I’ve seen among leaders who scale successfully:
From rapid growth to sustainable expansion
In a rush to grow, many leaders pursue short-term wins that ultimately undermine long-term stability. True scalability doesn’t come from intensity; it comes from consistency. Leaders who succeed take the time to build systems that support growth without burning out their people or compromising service quality.
From templates to tailored plans
There’s no universal playbook for growth, especially not in complex, regulated industries. While templated advice can sound appealing, it often fails to consider a company’s values, goals, team dynamics, and compliance requirements. Successful leaders build a path forward based on where they are, not where someone else started.
From activity to alignment
Scaling isn’t about doing more; it’s about doing the right things, in the right order, with the right people. That requires alignment across strategy, operations, and culture. When these elements are disconnected, even the most talented teams struggle. But when they’re in sync, growth becomes not only achievable but sustainable.
That’s why I developed the STAR Scalability℠ Method, because scaling shouldn't require sacrificing your culture, your people, or your sanity. STAR gives leaders a clear path forward, grounded in what actually drives sustainable growth.
Introducing the STAR Scalability℠ Method
The STAR Scalability℠ Method is a strategic framework I developed to help leaders scale their businesses with clarity, alignment, and sustainability. It’s built around four essential pillars:
S. Strategy
Most leaders have goals. Far fewer have strategies that are rooted in their values. When your strategy isn’t aligned with what matters most to you and to your business, you’ll constantly feel friction. STAR helps businesses re-align their strategy to reflect not just market opportunity, but what kind of company they want to become.
T. Team
You can’t scale alone, and you can’t scale with the wrong people in the wrong roles. Building the right team means more than hiring talent; it means clearly defining expectations, responsibilities, and how each role supports growth. STAR emphasizes structure, accountability, and emotional intelligence at every level of the team.
A. Assets
From workflows and client-facing tools to your brand voice and service models, assets are anything that supports how your business runs and grows. But most businesses either underutilize what they already have or overinvest in tools they don’t need. STAR helps leaders identify, organize, and leverage their existing assets to support scale before chasing shiny new ones.
R. Rewards
Scaling should be worth it for everyone. Yet many leaders fail to define what success really looks like, or they assume their team is motivated by the same outcomes they are. Unlike “results,” which can be negative or unclear, “rewards” are intentional. They reflect the outcomes you want to achieve personally, financially, and culturally. STAR helps businesses create a scalable reward structure that drives performance, reinforces culture, and keeps everyone aligned.
This framework doesn’t just diagnose what’s broken. It creates a practical, repeatable roadmap for sustainable growth tailored to your business, your people, and your purpose.
Conclusion
The most frustrating part of scaling is that it often feels like it should be working. You’ve got ambition, clients, and momentum, but instead of feeling empowered, you feel stuck, stressed, or overwhelmed.
The problem isn’t you. It’s the plan.
Growth doesn’t happen through more hustle. It happens when strategy, team, assets, and rewards are aligned and when leadership has a framework designed to navigate the realities of scale, not just the theory of it.
That’s exactly what the STAR Scalability℠ Method is designed to do.
If your business is growing but your systems, culture, or clarity haven’t caught up, you’re not alone, and there’s a better way forward.
Book a 30-minute Transformative Session here and explore what scaling can look like with the right strategy.
Read more from Joe Patneaude
Joe Patneaude, Executive Coach
Joe Patneaude is a Certified Executive Coach who helps business owners and leaders scale with purpose, clarity, and confidence. After rising through the ranks in financial services—from the mailroom to the C-suite—Joe realized that true success isn’t just about growth, but about alignment with personal values. This insight led him to develop the STAR Scalability℠ Method, a practical framework that guides business owners to scale in a way that supports both profitability and well-being. Today, he coaches leaders ready to move beyond burnout and build thriving, scalable businesses. He is also the author of Follow the STAR: Unlock Monumental Business Growth and a certified NLP Practitioner.
