A few years ago, someone said to me, “You should have seen this place ten years ago.” They didn’t say it with pride. They said it with a mix of nostalgia and disappointment. The beach was still there. The buildings were newer. The prices, noticeably higher. But the service felt rushed, the food less memorable, and the rooms somehow more standard than before. Nothing was terrible. Nothing was clearly wrong. It just wasn’t better. There were more people, more traffic, more options and less of what had made the place special in the first place. And that made me wonder how something could grow so much, yet improve so little. That conversation comes back to me often when I hear organisations talk about growth.
Now more, but better
Growth has become something we chase almost automatically. More locations. More products. More customers. More output.
In business, growth is often treated as proof that things are going well. And sometimes it is. Especially in the early stages, growing can be necessary to survive and to build a solid base. But at some point, it is worth slowing down and asking what kind of growth we are really talking about. Because growth as “more” is not the same as growth as “better.”
Growing bigger adds volume, but it also adds weight. More systems, more coordination, more people, more maintenance, more decisions. All of that needs to be carried by the organisation. And the larger you become, the more dependent you are on resources that are not unlimited: skilled people, reliable suppliers, time, energy, and attention. In environments where these resources are already under pressure, growth in size quickly starts to create strain. What looks like progress from the outside can feel like constant firefighting on the inside.
People are often the first place where this becomes visible. There are only so many capable, experienced people available. When demand increases faster than supply, teams are stretched. The strongest people start compensating for what is missing. They work longer hours, take on extra responsibility, and quietly protect the quality that is expected. For a while, this works. Until it doesn’t. Fatigue sets in. Standards slowly slip. Not because people don’t care, but because the system is asking more than it can sustainably give. Long before people leave, performance suffers.
We see similar patterns beyond organisations, in real places people recognise. Ibiza and Bali are often mentioned as success stories of growth. Visitor numbers increased, businesses expanded, and money flowed in. But many people who knew these places years ago will tell you the same thing: they became busier, louder, and less distinctive. Growth did not make the experience richer; it made it crowded.
The same conversations are now happening in places like Kenya and other parts of East and Southern Africa. Areas that once felt remote and special are seeing more vehicles, more pressure on infrastructure, and more competition for the same limited resources. The experience is still there, but it is under strain. At the same time, customers are not standing still. Expectations evolve. Choice increases. Loyalty becomes fragile. Being “good enough” rarely stays good enough for long, especially when alternatives are easy to find.
What often gets overlooked is that growing bigger does not freeze expectations at the same level. It raises them. A larger organisation is expected to be more professional, more consistent, more reliable. Size brings visibility, and visibility brings scrutiny.
This is where the question shifts.
If growth in size increases pressure, complexity, and risk, is it always the right goal? Or is it simply the most obvious one?
Becoming better is a different kind of growth. It is less visible at first, but far more powerful over time. It is about improving how work is done, how people are supported, how decisions are made, and how value is created. It strengthens what already exists instead of stretching it thinner.
Most dissatisfaction, whether from customers or employees, does not come from a lack of ambition. It comes from small failures in quality, consistency, and care. These are not solved by doing more, but by doing things better. When quality improves, pressure reduces. When people are supported, performance stabilises. When the experience is genuinely better, price becomes less of a battle and loyalty becomes more natural.
So perhaps the real question is not how fast or how big we can grow, but how strong we can become.
What would happen if, instead of adding more, we invested in becoming better?
Better at what we already do.
Better at how we work together.
Better at delivering value that lasts.
In the long run, better is what sustains growth.
More, on its own, rarely does.
Peter Henssen
