76. Scaling Without Breaking Your People: The Manager's Guide to Sustainable Growth
Scaling rapidly is often seen as the ultimate goal in ambitious organizations, but what happens when the pressure to grow starts to sacrifice your team’s well-being? Managers are caught between ambitious growth targets and the reality of managing a team that's already stretched thin. The result? Burnout, turnover, and a culture that struggles to sustain growth.
In this episode, we're exploring how to scale without breaking your people. We break down the challenges managers face in balancing rapid growth with team care and why traditional scaling methods often lead to burnout. We’re sharing a framework for building sustainable growth that honors your team, preserves your culture, and meets your business targets without sacrificing well-being.
You’ll learn how to navigate the pressures of scaling, maintain team morale, and integrate new hires successfully. Plus, we’re offering practical strategies to lead through growth, protect your team’s capacity, and create a people strategy that aligns with your business goals.
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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why traditional scaling methods create burnout cycles and how to recognize when your team is at risk.
The difference between healthy, productive growth and destructive pressure in fast-paced environments.
How to balance ambitious growth targets with the well-being of your team.
Ways to build integration and development plans for new hires to ensure quick success without overwhelm.
How to create a people strategy that supports culture, maintains morale, and ensures sustainability during growth.
The importance of managing both short-term results and long-term team health.
How to evolve your people strategy as your company scales.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Kelle: Calling all managers who are being asked to do the impossible: scale rapidly while keeping everyone happy, engaged, and not burned out.
Nina: Does that sound familiar? You're caught between leadership demanding aggressive growth targets and a team that's already stretched thin. Your veteran employees are drowning in new responsibilities while training new hires at lightning speed. Your new people are thrown into the deep end, expected to perform while learning everything on the fly.
Kelle: Here's what usually happens next. Your best people start looking for other jobs. Ugh, right? Team morale plummets, trust tanks, quality suffers, and ironically, all of that aggressive scaling actually slows down because you're constantly dealing with turnover.
Nina: But here's what we know. Scaling doesn't have to break your people. Today, we're giving you the framework for what we call Ambitious People Strategy: how to honor your veterans while integrating new talent, how to maintain culture while expanding fast, and how to hit growth targets without sacrificing your team. Because your people strategy needs to be just as ambitious as your business goals.
This is an episode you're going to want to share with your friends and colleagues. We know you'll recognize someone in here that you know, maybe even yourself.
Kelle: All right, ready to scale without the casualties? Let's get going. This is Ambitious-Ish.
This is Ambitious-ish. Burnout? Check. Daily overwhelm? Check. Resentment rash, stress, and a complete lack of well-being? Check, check, check! You’re not alone. We’re your hosts, Kelle & Nina, and we are here to help you feel calm, balanced, and empowered so you can redefine success, make choices that feel authentic, and ACTUALLY enjoy the life you work so hard to create. You ready? Let’s go.
Kelle: Hey, I'm Kelle.
Nina: And I'm Nina. And today we're talking to all the managers out there who are being asked to do something that sounds impossible: scale rapidly while keeping everyone happy, engaged, and not burned out.
Kelle: Yeah, we're seeing this big time locally here. So many Utah companies are up-leveling as we gear up to be on the global stage in 2034 as host to the Winter Olympic Games again here.
Nina: Woo! Yeah, totally. We're working with internal leadership and their teams to help them collaborate more productively as new and old talent alike is feeling stretched thin.
Kelle: Yeah, today we're diving into what we call Ambitious People Strategy: how to honor your veteran employees while integrating the new talent, how to maintain that culture while expanding fast, and how to hit those aggressive growth targets without breaking or burning out your team.
Nina: Because like we said, we're seeing companies everywhere with huge expansion plans who are finally realizing that their people strategy needs to be just as ambitious as their business goals.
Kelle: And if you are a manager caught in the middle of this, trying to keep your existing team from burning out while onboarding new employees, new people at lightning speed, and maybe even with limited resources, this episode is for you.
Nina: Today, we're giving you a framework for leading through rapid growth that doesn't sacrifice your people on that altar of progress.
Kelle: So, buckle up because we're about to challenge the idea that scaling fast means someone has to suffer.
Nina: Yeah, let's start with some real talk about what's actually happening in most scaling companies right now, right?
Kelle: Yeah, we see this. Leadership sets ambitious targets. Everyone gets really excited about the growth, but nobody talks about what the growth is going to cost the people who have to make it happen.
Nina: Right. Your veteran employees, the ones who've been with you through the early days, suddenly find themselves drowning in new responsibilities, training new hires, and working at an unsustainable pace.
Kelle: Your new hires are thrown into the deep end, expected to perform at full capacity while learning the culture, the systems, and the unwritten rules that nobody bothered to document, by the way.
Nina: Yeah, there are always unwritten rules in a new situation, right? In a new environment, totally. And you, as the manager, are stuck in the middle, trying to keep everyone productive while secretly wondering if you're setting everyone up to fail.
Kelle: I mean, does this sound familiar? I feel like I'm imagining just people swimming in the deep end, trying to like figure it all out. This is a story of literally every scaling company we've worked with.
Nina: And here's what usually happens next. Your best employees start looking for other jobs because they feel taken for granted and overworked.
Kelle: Yeah, your new hires struggle to integrate and either leave quickly or never reach their full potential.
Nina: Team morale plummets, quality suffers, and ironically, all that aggressive scaling actually slows down because you're constantly dealing with turnover and training.
Kelle: Yeah, the very thing that was supposed to accelerate your growth becomes the thing that sabotages it.
Nina: But here's what we want you to understand. This isn't inevitable. Scaling doesn't have to break your people.
Kelle: It's so true. You can have ambitious growth and a sustainable team. You can honor your veterans and successfully integrate new talent. And you can hit aggressive targets and maintain your culture.
Nina: But it requires what we call Ambitious People Strategy: being just as intentional about your people as you are about your profit margins.
Kelle: All right, so let's talk about what this actually looks like in practice because we're not here to give you fluffy advice about, "Let's just all communicate better."
Nina: Yeah, no, no. So listen, first, you need to get honest about what scaling actually requires from your people and then resource them accordingly.
Kelle: What we see is that most managers make the mistake of thinking they can just ask people to do more with the same, right? But scaling isn't about doing more of what you're already doing. It's about doing different things at a different level.
Nina: Yeah, your veteran employees need to evolve from individual contributors to mentors, from following processes to creating processes, from managing their own work to managing the work of others.
Kelle: That's not just doing more, right? That's developing entirely new skills. And if you don't give them the support and training and time to develop those skills, they're going to burn out.
Nina: Oof. Yeah, they're going to be frustrated and irritated and burned out. And just take off, right?
Kelle: Yeah.
Nina: Yeah, those new hires, too, need to understand not just what to do, but why it matters. The why is so killer here. It's so helpful. How it fits into the bigger picture, how their work fits into the bigger picture, and what success looks like in your specific environment.
Kelle: They need accelerated integration, not just orientation. They need to feel like contributors, not just warm bodies filling seats, like doing the work.
Nina: Yeah, and both groups need to understand that their roles are evolving, that the company they joined is changing, and that their growth is part of the plan, not just an afterthought.
Kelle: So, the first step in ambitious people strategy is having honest conversations about what scaling actually means for each person on your team.
Nina: Yeah. Second, we need to create what we call bridge leadership. So helping your veteran employees step into expanded roles without losing what made them successful in the first place, right?
Kelle: It's so true. Your long-time team members are valuable precisely because they understand your culture and your standards, and your way of doing things.
Nina: But scaling often requires them to let go of being the person who does the work and become the person who guides others in doing the work, right?
Kelle: It's so true, and that's just a massive identity shift. And if you don't help them navigate it, they're going to resist it, right?
Nina: Yeah. So you need to be explicit about this transition, right? You need to say, "Your value to this company is now about your ability to develop others, not just your ability to execute tasks," right?
Kelle: Yeah. And Nina, this makes me think about a client that we have that was like, he was just talking about how he was working with his people for them to rise, and he wasn't even thinking about how he was going to rise himself into his new role, right?
Nina: Totally.
Kelle: And that just shows, like, you need to think ahead and give your people the tools, the training, and support to become mentors, not just tell them to show the new people what to do. And you need to do that for yourself too.
Nina: Yeah, and you need to celebrate their success in developing others, right? Not just their individual output.
Kelle: Yeah, and yours too, right?
Nina: Mhmm. Because if you keep measuring you and them by the old metrics, they'll keep trying to do the old job, plus all the new responsibilities you've added.
Nina: Okay, so third here, you need to create what we call accelerated integration for the new hires, for your new hires.
Kelle: Mhmm. This isn't about faster onboarding. This is about helping new people contribute meaningfully from day one while respecting the culture they're joining.
Nina: Yeah, faster is not always better. This is a whole other episode, but listen, slow is the new fast. We'll tell you why. Thoughtful decisions beat hasty ones every time. Quality work takes less time than fixing rushed work. Strategic thinking prevents more problems than reactive scrambling solves, right? And sustainable pace beats burnout cycles that require recovery time.
So, too many companies treat new hires like they're lucky to be there and should just figure it out. But ambitious companies recognize that new hires are an investment. And investments need to be protected. Are we right? This is all about managing, right, deliberately. Playing chess, not checkers. The busy, scattered people aren't changing the world. The focused people are.
Kelle: It's so true. Your new people need to understand not just their role, but how their role impacts the team and the company, and the client or customer.
Nina: Yeah, the big picture. This is so key. They need to know who the key players are, what the unwritten rules are, like we said, and how decisions get made. This is cool too, really important.
Kelle: They also need early wins, right? They need projects they can succeed at quickly to build confidence and credibility with the team.
Nina: And they need feedback loops, right? Regular check-ins that help them course-correct before small issues become big problems.
Kelle: But here's the key. They also need to feel like their fresh perspective is valued, not just tolerated.
Nina: Yeah, because new people often see things that veteran employees have become blind to, right? Unwittingly. They ask questions that reveal processes that no longer make sense, perhaps, right? They bring ideas that could improve so much. So key.
Kelle: Yeah, if you create a culture where new people feel like they just kind of have to shut up and follow orders and robot along, you're wasting the very innovation that rapid growth requires.
Nina: And fourth here, you need to create what we call sustainable high performance. And this is where killer coaching is really useful. But we need systems that drive results without driving people into the ground.
Kelle: This is where most scaling companies fail. They think that high performance means constant pressure and endless hours and never-ending deadlines or these really short deadlines, right? This is the productivity obsession at its worst.
Nina: And that's not sustainable. And it's not actually high performance. It's just burnout disguised as productivity, right?
Kelle: Real high performance comes from clarity, not chaos, right? From support, not from stress, and from systems and processes, not from suffering.
Nina: Your people need to know what success looks like, how their work contributes to it, and what resources they have to achieve it.
Kelle: Yeah, they need realistic timelines, adequate resources, and permission to say when something isn't working. Like, voice it.
Nina: Totally. They need to feel like they're part of building something meaningful, not just hitting arbitrary numbers, right?
Kelle: Yeah, and they need to see that their well-being matters to the company, not just their output.
Nina: Because here's what ambitious companies understand: Burned-out people don't create innovative solutions. Exhausted people don't provide exceptional service. Stressed people don't make great decisions, right?
Kelle: Yeah, they just want to quit and become baristas, right?
Nina: Yep. We hear that all the time. Oh my god. Park rangers. Yes.
Kelle: Or park rangers. Yeah. And if you want ambitious results, you need people who have the energy and the creativity and the resilience to deliver.
Nina: Now, let's talk about the specific challenges that come up when veteran employees and new hires are trying to work together during this rapid scaling.
Kelle: All right. Challenge number one. The veterans feel like they're being taken advantage of because they're expected to do their job plus train someone else.
Nina: Yeah. So solution here, make mentoring and knowledge transfer part of their official job description, not just something they're expected to do on top of everything else, not this invisible thing, right?
Kelle: Mhmm. Yeah, give them time, resources, and recognition for developing others. Measure them on the success of the people they're mentoring, not just on their individual productivity, right?
Nina: So key. Yeah. Okay, challenge two. The new hires feel like they're constantly being judged against the old guard and can never measure up. This happens a lot, too.
Kelle: Yes. Yes. The solution here is to create clear onboarding milestones that show progression and celebrate early wins. Make sure veterans understand that their job is to help new people succeed, not to prove that they're better.
Nina: Yeah, totally. Okay, challenge number three. The culture feels like it's being diluted because so many new people are joining at once, right?
Kelle: Yeah, the solution here is to be explicit about what aspects of your culture are non-negotiable and what aspects can evolve. Invite those veterans in defining and teaching culture, not just expecting new people to absorb through osmosis, like, again, figure it out. Good luck. Good luck to you.
Nina: Yeah. Ugh. All right. Challenge four. Decision-making becomes slow and confused because nobody knows who's responsible for what anymore. Raising my hand. Totally been there before. Yeah.
Kelle: All right, the solution here is to update the org charts and decision-making processes, and communication protocols regularly. Make sure everyone knows who has authority over what, especially as their roles expand.
Nina: Yeah, let's get practical about what you can do now as a manager, starting this week. Why don't we do that, right?
Kelle: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, first, have one-on-one conversations with everyone on your team about how scaling is affecting them specifically.
Nina: Yeah, don't make assumptions here. Don't make assumptions about what they need. Ask them directly. What's working for you? What's not? What support do you need to be successful in this new environment?
Kelle: So good. I just love conversations. I just love clarity like that. It's so good.
Nina: I love asking questions too. Yeah.
Kelle: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, second is create clear development paths for your veteran employees that show how their role is evolving and what success looks like at each stage.
Nina: Yeah. Third, here, design a structured integration process for new hires, right? That includes not just task training, but culture integration, relationship building, and those early feedback loops we talked about earlier.
Kelle: Yeah. And fourth, establish regular team meetings focused on process improvement, not just status updates. Give everyone permission to identify what's not working and suggest solutions instead of just kind of going along with it.
Nina: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And fifth here, create metrics that measure team health, not just the individual output, right? Track things like employee engagement, knowledge transfer effectiveness, right? How it's all going, and integration success. Let's track all this.
Kelle: And sixth, model the behavior you want to see. If you want sustainable high performance, don't work 80-hour weeks, right? If you want collaboration, don't make decisions in isolation.
Nina: Yeah, totally. Now, let's address the objection we know you're having. But Nina and Kelle, my leadership is demanding aggressive growth targets. I don't have time for all this people strategy stuff, right?
Kelle: Here's what we want you to understand. People strategy isn't separate from growth strategy. It is growth strategy.
Nina: You cannot scale sustainably without investing in your people. It seems so obvious, right? And you cannot hit aggressive targets with a burned-out, disengaged team.
Kelle: And you cannot maintain quality culture while rapidly expanding unless you're intentional about how you develop and integrate your people.
Nina: The choice isn't between hitting targets or caring for your people. The choice is between short-term gains that aren't sustainable or long-term growth that is.
Kelle: The companies that scale successfully are the ones that recognize that their people are their competitive advantage, not just their workforce.
Nina: So let's talk about what changes when you implement ambitious people strategy.
Kelle: All right, first, your veteran employees become your best recruiters because they feel valued and supported, not just used.
Nina: Yeah. Second, your new hires integrate faster and contribute more because they're set up for success from day one, right?
Kelle: So true. And your team becomes more innovative because people feel safe to share ideas and take risks.
Nina: Your culture becomes stronger, not weaker, because you're being intentional about maintaining it during growth.
Kelle: And you actually hit your growth targets more consistently because you have a sustainable system, not just a bunch of people grinding unsustainably.
Nina: But here is what we need to prepare you for. This approach requires you to have courage.
Kelle: Yeah, you have to have courage to push back when leadership asks for impossible timelines or lack of resources, right? You have to have courage to advocate for your people when they're being asked to do too much.
Nina: Courage to slow down the hiring process if you don't have the infrastructure to support new people properly.
Kelle: And courage to measure success by more than just short-term metrics.
Nina: Because here's what we know about the best managers. They understand that their job isn't just to extract productivity from their people. It's to create conditions where their people can actually thrive.
Kelle: And when your people are thriving, they create results that exceed what anyone thought was possible.
Nina: Okay, so your homework this week is to choose one element, one, of ambitious people strategy and implement it with your team.
Kelle: Maybe it's having those honest conversations about how scaling is affecting everyone, or it's creating a formal mentoring structure for your veterans.
Nina: Yeah, maybe it's redesigning your onboarding process to focus on that integration, right? Not just information. Maybe it's establishing those new metrics that measure team health alongside output.
Kelle: Whatever you choose, start small, but start now because your people can't wait for you to build the perfect system.
Nina: They need to see that you're committed to their success, not just the company's success.
Kelle: And Rockstar, when you create an environment where people can do their best work, they will. When you invest in their growth, they'll invest in yours.
Nina: When you scale without breaking your people, you build something that lasts.
Kelle: All right, so good. Until next time, lead with your people in mind because that's how you create results that matter.
Nina: All right. That's all for today. Thanks for being here, everyone.
Kelle: Yeah, thanks so much for being here. See you next time.
Nina: Hey everyone, if you want more live access to me and Kelle, you have to join our email list.
Kelle: Yes, we’ll come to your email box every Tuesday and Thursday.
Nina: You can ask us questions, get clarity, and get coached.
Kelle: We offer monthly free email coaching when you’re on our list and you’re the first to know about trainings, events, and other free coaching opportunities.
Nina: Just go to KelleAndNina.com to sign up.
Kelle: Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Ambitious-Ish.
Nina: If you’re ready to align your ambitions with your heart and feel more calm, balanced, and connected, visit KelleAndNina.com for more information about how to work with us and make sure you get on our list.
Kelle: See you in the next episode!
Nina: Does that sound familiar? You're caught between leadership demanding aggressive growth targets and a team that's already stretched thin. Your veteran employees are drowning in new responsibilities while training new hires at lightning speed. Your new people are thrown into the deep end, expected to perform while learning everything on the fly.
Kelle: Here's what usually happens next. Your best people start looking for other jobs. Ugh, right? Team morale plummets, trust tanks, quality suffers, and ironically, all of that aggressive scaling actually slows down because you're constantly dealing with turnover.
Nina: But here's what we know. Scaling doesn't have to break your people. Today, we're giving you the framework for what we call Ambitious People Strategy: how to honor your veterans while integrating new talent, how to maintain culture while expanding fast, and how to hit growth targets without sacrificing your team. Because your people strategy needs to be just as ambitious as your business goals.
This is an episode you're going to want to share with your friends and colleagues. We know you'll recognize someone in here that you know, maybe even yourself.
Kelle: All right, ready to scale without the casualties? Let's get going. This is Ambitious-Ish.
This is Ambitious-ish. Burnout? Check. Daily overwhelm? Check. Resentment rash, stress, and a complete lack of well-being? Check, check, check! You’re not alone. We’re your hosts, Kelle & Nina, and we are here to help you feel calm, balanced, and empowered so you can redefine success, make choices that feel authentic, and ACTUALLY enjoy the life you work so hard to create. You ready? Let’s go.
Kelle: Hey, I'm Kelle.
Nina: And I'm Nina. And today we're talking to all the managers out there who are being asked to do something that sounds impossible: scale rapidly while keeping everyone happy, engaged, and not burned out.
Kelle: Yeah, we're seeing this big time locally here. So many Utah companies are up-leveling as we gear up to be on the global stage in 2034 as host to the Winter Olympic Games again here.
Nina: Woo! Yeah, totally. We're working with internal leadership and their teams to help them collaborate more productively as new and old talent alike is feeling stretched thin.
Kelle: Yeah, today we're diving into what we call Ambitious People Strategy: how to honor your veteran employees while integrating the new talent, how to maintain that culture while expanding fast, and how to hit those aggressive growth targets without breaking or burning out your team.
Nina: Because like we said, we're seeing companies everywhere with huge expansion plans who are finally realizing that their people strategy needs to be just as ambitious as their business goals.
Kelle: And if you are a manager caught in the middle of this, trying to keep your existing team from burning out while onboarding new employees, new people at lightning speed, and maybe even with limited resources, this episode is for you.
Nina: Today, we're giving you a framework for leading through rapid growth that doesn't sacrifice your people on that altar of progress.
Kelle: So, buckle up because we're about to challenge the idea that scaling fast means someone has to suffer.
Nina: Yeah, let's start with some real talk about what's actually happening in most scaling companies right now, right?
Kelle: Yeah, we see this. Leadership sets ambitious targets. Everyone gets really excited about the growth, but nobody talks about what the growth is going to cost the people who have to make it happen.
Nina: Right. Your veteran employees, the ones who've been with you through the early days, suddenly find themselves drowning in new responsibilities, training new hires, and working at an unsustainable pace.
Kelle: Your new hires are thrown into the deep end, expected to perform at full capacity while learning the culture, the systems, and the unwritten rules that nobody bothered to document, by the way.
Nina: Yeah, there are always unwritten rules in a new situation, right? In a new environment, totally. And you, as the manager, are stuck in the middle, trying to keep everyone productive while secretly wondering if you're setting everyone up to fail.
Kelle: I mean, does this sound familiar? I feel like I'm imagining just people swimming in the deep end, trying to like figure it all out. This is a story of literally every scaling company we've worked with.
Nina: And here's what usually happens next. Your best employees start looking for other jobs because they feel taken for granted and overworked.
Kelle: Yeah, your new hires struggle to integrate and either leave quickly or never reach their full potential.
Nina: Team morale plummets, quality suffers, and ironically, all that aggressive scaling actually slows down because you're constantly dealing with turnover and training.
Kelle: Yeah, the very thing that was supposed to accelerate your growth becomes the thing that sabotages it.
Nina: But here's what we want you to understand. This isn't inevitable. Scaling doesn't have to break your people.
Kelle: It's so true. You can have ambitious growth and a sustainable team. You can honor your veterans and successfully integrate new talent. And you can hit aggressive targets and maintain your culture.
Nina: But it requires what we call Ambitious People Strategy: being just as intentional about your people as you are about your profit margins.
Kelle: All right, so let's talk about what this actually looks like in practice because we're not here to give you fluffy advice about, "Let's just all communicate better."
Nina: Yeah, no, no. So listen, first, you need to get honest about what scaling actually requires from your people and then resource them accordingly.
Kelle: What we see is that most managers make the mistake of thinking they can just ask people to do more with the same, right? But scaling isn't about doing more of what you're already doing. It's about doing different things at a different level.
Nina: Yeah, your veteran employees need to evolve from individual contributors to mentors, from following processes to creating processes, from managing their own work to managing the work of others.
Kelle: That's not just doing more, right? That's developing entirely new skills. And if you don't give them the support and training and time to develop those skills, they're going to burn out.
Nina: Oof. Yeah, they're going to be frustrated and irritated and burned out. And just take off, right?
Kelle: Yeah.
Nina: Yeah, those new hires, too, need to understand not just what to do, but why it matters. The why is so killer here. It's so helpful. How it fits into the bigger picture, how their work fits into the bigger picture, and what success looks like in your specific environment.
Kelle: They need accelerated integration, not just orientation. They need to feel like contributors, not just warm bodies filling seats, like doing the work.
Nina: Yeah, and both groups need to understand that their roles are evolving, that the company they joined is changing, and that their growth is part of the plan, not just an afterthought.
Kelle: So, the first step in ambitious people strategy is having honest conversations about what scaling actually means for each person on your team.
Nina: Yeah. Second, we need to create what we call bridge leadership. So helping your veteran employees step into expanded roles without losing what made them successful in the first place, right?
Kelle: It's so true. Your long-time team members are valuable precisely because they understand your culture and your standards, and your way of doing things.
Nina: But scaling often requires them to let go of being the person who does the work and become the person who guides others in doing the work, right?
Kelle: It's so true, and that's just a massive identity shift. And if you don't help them navigate it, they're going to resist it, right?
Nina: Yeah. So you need to be explicit about this transition, right? You need to say, "Your value to this company is now about your ability to develop others, not just your ability to execute tasks," right?
Kelle: Yeah. And Nina, this makes me think about a client that we have that was like, he was just talking about how he was working with his people for them to rise, and he wasn't even thinking about how he was going to rise himself into his new role, right?
Nina: Totally.
Kelle: And that just shows, like, you need to think ahead and give your people the tools, the training, and support to become mentors, not just tell them to show the new people what to do. And you need to do that for yourself too.
Nina: Yeah, and you need to celebrate their success in developing others, right? Not just their individual output.
Kelle: Yeah, and yours too, right?
Nina: Mhmm. Because if you keep measuring you and them by the old metrics, they'll keep trying to do the old job, plus all the new responsibilities you've added.
Nina: Okay, so third here, you need to create what we call accelerated integration for the new hires, for your new hires.
Kelle: Mhmm. This isn't about faster onboarding. This is about helping new people contribute meaningfully from day one while respecting the culture they're joining.
Nina: Yeah, faster is not always better. This is a whole other episode, but listen, slow is the new fast. We'll tell you why. Thoughtful decisions beat hasty ones every time. Quality work takes less time than fixing rushed work. Strategic thinking prevents more problems than reactive scrambling solves, right? And sustainable pace beats burnout cycles that require recovery time.
So, too many companies treat new hires like they're lucky to be there and should just figure it out. But ambitious companies recognize that new hires are an investment. And investments need to be protected. Are we right? This is all about managing, right, deliberately. Playing chess, not checkers. The busy, scattered people aren't changing the world. The focused people are.
Kelle: It's so true. Your new people need to understand not just their role, but how their role impacts the team and the company, and the client or customer.
Nina: Yeah, the big picture. This is so key. They need to know who the key players are, what the unwritten rules are, like we said, and how decisions get made. This is cool too, really important.
Kelle: They also need early wins, right? They need projects they can succeed at quickly to build confidence and credibility with the team.
Nina: And they need feedback loops, right? Regular check-ins that help them course-correct before small issues become big problems.
Kelle: But here's the key. They also need to feel like their fresh perspective is valued, not just tolerated.
Nina: Yeah, because new people often see things that veteran employees have become blind to, right? Unwittingly. They ask questions that reveal processes that no longer make sense, perhaps, right? They bring ideas that could improve so much. So key.
Kelle: Yeah, if you create a culture where new people feel like they just kind of have to shut up and follow orders and robot along, you're wasting the very innovation that rapid growth requires.
Nina: And fourth here, you need to create what we call sustainable high performance. And this is where killer coaching is really useful. But we need systems that drive results without driving people into the ground.
Kelle: This is where most scaling companies fail. They think that high performance means constant pressure and endless hours and never-ending deadlines or these really short deadlines, right? This is the productivity obsession at its worst.
Nina: And that's not sustainable. And it's not actually high performance. It's just burnout disguised as productivity, right?
Kelle: Real high performance comes from clarity, not chaos, right? From support, not from stress, and from systems and processes, not from suffering.
Nina: Your people need to know what success looks like, how their work contributes to it, and what resources they have to achieve it.
Kelle: Yeah, they need realistic timelines, adequate resources, and permission to say when something isn't working. Like, voice it.
Nina: Totally. They need to feel like they're part of building something meaningful, not just hitting arbitrary numbers, right?
Kelle: Yeah, and they need to see that their well-being matters to the company, not just their output.
Nina: Because here's what ambitious companies understand: Burned-out people don't create innovative solutions. Exhausted people don't provide exceptional service. Stressed people don't make great decisions, right?
Kelle: Yeah, they just want to quit and become baristas, right?
Nina: Yep. We hear that all the time. Oh my god. Park rangers. Yes.
Kelle: Or park rangers. Yeah. And if you want ambitious results, you need people who have the energy and the creativity and the resilience to deliver.
Nina: Now, let's talk about the specific challenges that come up when veteran employees and new hires are trying to work together during this rapid scaling.
Kelle: All right. Challenge number one. The veterans feel like they're being taken advantage of because they're expected to do their job plus train someone else.
Nina: Yeah. So solution here, make mentoring and knowledge transfer part of their official job description, not just something they're expected to do on top of everything else, not this invisible thing, right?
Kelle: Mhmm. Yeah, give them time, resources, and recognition for developing others. Measure them on the success of the people they're mentoring, not just on their individual productivity, right?
Nina: So key. Yeah. Okay, challenge two. The new hires feel like they're constantly being judged against the old guard and can never measure up. This happens a lot, too.
Kelle: Yes. Yes. The solution here is to create clear onboarding milestones that show progression and celebrate early wins. Make sure veterans understand that their job is to help new people succeed, not to prove that they're better.
Nina: Yeah, totally. Okay, challenge number three. The culture feels like it's being diluted because so many new people are joining at once, right?
Kelle: Yeah, the solution here is to be explicit about what aspects of your culture are non-negotiable and what aspects can evolve. Invite those veterans in defining and teaching culture, not just expecting new people to absorb through osmosis, like, again, figure it out. Good luck. Good luck to you.
Nina: Yeah. Ugh. All right. Challenge four. Decision-making becomes slow and confused because nobody knows who's responsible for what anymore. Raising my hand. Totally been there before. Yeah.
Kelle: All right, the solution here is to update the org charts and decision-making processes, and communication protocols regularly. Make sure everyone knows who has authority over what, especially as their roles expand.
Nina: Yeah, let's get practical about what you can do now as a manager, starting this week. Why don't we do that, right?
Kelle: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, first, have one-on-one conversations with everyone on your team about how scaling is affecting them specifically.
Nina: Yeah, don't make assumptions here. Don't make assumptions about what they need. Ask them directly. What's working for you? What's not? What support do you need to be successful in this new environment?
Kelle: So good. I just love conversations. I just love clarity like that. It's so good.
Nina: I love asking questions too. Yeah.
Kelle: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, second is create clear development paths for your veteran employees that show how their role is evolving and what success looks like at each stage.
Nina: Yeah. Third, here, design a structured integration process for new hires, right? That includes not just task training, but culture integration, relationship building, and those early feedback loops we talked about earlier.
Kelle: Yeah. And fourth, establish regular team meetings focused on process improvement, not just status updates. Give everyone permission to identify what's not working and suggest solutions instead of just kind of going along with it.
Nina: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And fifth here, create metrics that measure team health, not just the individual output, right? Track things like employee engagement, knowledge transfer effectiveness, right? How it's all going, and integration success. Let's track all this.
Kelle: And sixth, model the behavior you want to see. If you want sustainable high performance, don't work 80-hour weeks, right? If you want collaboration, don't make decisions in isolation.
Nina: Yeah, totally. Now, let's address the objection we know you're having. But Nina and Kelle, my leadership is demanding aggressive growth targets. I don't have time for all this people strategy stuff, right?
Kelle: Here's what we want you to understand. People strategy isn't separate from growth strategy. It is growth strategy.
Nina: You cannot scale sustainably without investing in your people. It seems so obvious, right? And you cannot hit aggressive targets with a burned-out, disengaged team.
Kelle: And you cannot maintain quality culture while rapidly expanding unless you're intentional about how you develop and integrate your people.
Nina: The choice isn't between hitting targets or caring for your people. The choice is between short-term gains that aren't sustainable or long-term growth that is.
Kelle: The companies that scale successfully are the ones that recognize that their people are their competitive advantage, not just their workforce.
Nina: So let's talk about what changes when you implement ambitious people strategy.
Kelle: All right, first, your veteran employees become your best recruiters because they feel valued and supported, not just used.
Nina: Yeah. Second, your new hires integrate faster and contribute more because they're set up for success from day one, right?
Kelle: So true. And your team becomes more innovative because people feel safe to share ideas and take risks.
Nina: Your culture becomes stronger, not weaker, because you're being intentional about maintaining it during growth.
Kelle: And you actually hit your growth targets more consistently because you have a sustainable system, not just a bunch of people grinding unsustainably.
Nina: But here is what we need to prepare you for. This approach requires you to have courage.
Kelle: Yeah, you have to have courage to push back when leadership asks for impossible timelines or lack of resources, right? You have to have courage to advocate for your people when they're being asked to do too much.
Nina: Courage to slow down the hiring process if you don't have the infrastructure to support new people properly.
Kelle: And courage to measure success by more than just short-term metrics.
Nina: Because here's what we know about the best managers. They understand that their job isn't just to extract productivity from their people. It's to create conditions where their people can actually thrive.
Kelle: And when your people are thriving, they create results that exceed what anyone thought was possible.
Nina: Okay, so your homework this week is to choose one element, one, of ambitious people strategy and implement it with your team.
Kelle: Maybe it's having those honest conversations about how scaling is affecting everyone, or it's creating a formal mentoring structure for your veterans.
Nina: Yeah, maybe it's redesigning your onboarding process to focus on that integration, right? Not just information. Maybe it's establishing those new metrics that measure team health alongside output.
Kelle: Whatever you choose, start small, but start now because your people can't wait for you to build the perfect system.
Nina: They need to see that you're committed to their success, not just the company's success.
Kelle: And Rockstar, when you create an environment where people can do their best work, they will. When you invest in their growth, they'll invest in yours.
Nina: When you scale without breaking your people, you build something that lasts.
Kelle: All right, so good. Until next time, lead with your people in mind because that's how you create results that matter.
Nina: All right. That's all for today. Thanks for being here, everyone.
Kelle: Yeah, thanks so much for being here. See you next time.
Nina: Hey everyone, if you want more live access to me and Kelle, you have to join our email list.
Kelle: Yes, we’ll come to your email box every Tuesday and Thursday.
Nina: You can ask us questions, get clarity, and get coached.
Kelle: We offer monthly free email coaching when you’re on our list and you’re the first to know about trainings, events, and other free coaching opportunities.
Nina: Just go to KelleAndNina.com to sign up.
Kelle: Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Ambitious-Ish.
Nina: If you’re ready to align your ambitions with your heart and feel more calm, balanced, and connected, visit KelleAndNina.com for more information about how to work with us and make sure you get on our list.
Kelle: See you in the next episode!
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