Alignment Becomes Make-or-Break at Growth Stage

By Marina Lukyanova

Founders move fast, improvise, and adjust mid-air. Execution isn’t always clean, but it works, because the team is small and the context is shared.

But what gets you to product-market fit won’t get you through scaling. At the growth stage, what worked before starts to break.

The Moment Speed Stops Feeling Like Progress

I often get called in when a founder starts noticing this pattern:

• Everyone’s working, but not in sync

• The company is hiring, but not moving faster

• Strategy is clear at the top, but unclear in execution

This isn't about a failing team or a bad strategy. It’s a sign that the company has outgrown its early-stage reflexes — but hasn’t yet built the structure needed to scale without friction.

What Misalignment Looks Like at This Stage

What founders often describe as “slowness” or “communication issues” is actually deeper misalignment. Here’s how it typically shows up:

• Strategic goals don’t map to weekly priorities

• Teams work in silos, duplicating effort or misfiring

• Operations evolve reactively, not by design

The result? Decisions slow down. Initiatives stall mid-flight. No one’s sure who’s driving what. And everyone feels like they’re sprinting, but not gaining ground.

This isn’t just inefficient, it’s demoralizing. People start losing confidence not in the mission, but in the operating system that’s meant to drive it.

What Doesn’t Solve It

At this point, companies often try to fix the drag by:

• Adding more tools

• Hiring another layer of managers

• Scheduling more updates or all-hands meetings

But these changes are often cosmetic. They increase the volume of activity without improving its coherence. What’s missing isn’t effort, it’s alignment.

What Alignment Actually Means at Growth Stage

Alignment isn’t just about getting everyone to agree. It’s about building a system where vision, decisions, and operations reinforce each other — even as the company grows.

Here’s what I help founders do at this stage:

• Translate strategic goals into team-level focus

  So teams know what matters, and what doesn’t, this quarter

• Define decision ownership

  So the right people can act fast without bottlenecks or confusion

• Rebuild operating rhythms

  So execution supports momentum instead of fragmenting it

This isn’t about throwing out your strategy. It’s about recalibrating the way your team turns that strategy into movement.

From Chaos to Cohesion

Growth doesn’t require more hustle. It requires cohesion, the ability to move fast and together.

If your company feels like it’s doing more but gaining less, this might be the reason.

The good news? You don’t need a full reset, you need realignment.

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Marina Lukyanova is a Strategy & Operations Leader helping founders and executives turn big visions into aligned strategies that actually deliver results — from revenue growth to execution clarity.

Want help with alignment? Reach out to me on LinkedIn to turn strategic intent into operational traction that moves the needle.