Growth Is Not a Process. It’s an Environment.

A few months back, I walked into an office for a meeting and immediately thought, Okay, this place looks serious.

Big screens. Clean desks. A board full of charts tracking growth. I stood there for a second, hands in my pockets, scanning the room and thinking, Hmm… this team should be growing fast.

By lunch, it was obvious they weren’t.

People spoke carefully, like every sentence needed a safety check. Ideas came wrapped in disclaimers. Meetings were polite, efficient, and strangely quiet. Nobody challenged anything. Nobody disagreed. I leaned back in my chair at one point and caught myself wondering, Is this discipline… or is everyone just being careful?

The process was flawless.

The energy felt boxed in.

That moment stayed with me because I’ve made the same mistake myself.

What “Supervised Growth” Looks Like

Let me put it differently.

Imagine you have a seed. You want it to grow into a healthy plant in your garden. So you water it. You give it sunlight. All good so far.

Now imagine you get a little too involved.

You put a box over it to protect it from insects. Then another layer to protect it from the wind. You check it every hour. You adjust the soil constantly. You stop it from bending, just in case it breaks.

Technically, you’re doing everything “right,” and it should grow. But, in reality, the plant can’t breathe.

That’s what supervised growth looks like in companies.

Everything is controlled. Everything is reviewed. Everything is protected. And somehow, nothing really grows.

Why Frameworks Feel So Comforting

I understand why leaders love frameworks. They feel responsible. They give you something tangible to point at and say, “We’re working on growth.” They also look great in presentations.

I’ve built plenty of them. Some helped. Many just created the illusion of progress.

I remember sitting through one review, rubbing my temples and thinking, We have processes for everything… so why does this still feel flat? That’s when it clicked. We were managing growth instead of creating the conditions for it.

Growth was being supervised. Not supported.

What Growth Actually Responds To

Growth doesn’t behave like a checklist. It behaves more like that plant.

It responds to space.

To air.

To room for a little mess.

It shows up when people can ask questions without starting with, “This might be a dumb question.”

When disagreement isn’t treated like a problem.

When mistakes are examined instead of quietly buried.

I’ve seen teams with average talent grow quickly because the environment was alive. Ideas moved. Feedback flowed. People felt safe bending a little.

I’ve also seen very talented teams stall because everything had to be perfect before it could be said. Same process. Completely different outcome. Ugh. Once you notice that, you can’t unsee it.

The Signals Leaders Send Without Realizing It

Most environments aren’t shaped by big speeches. They’re shaped by small reactions.

By who gets interrupted.

By which ideas get airtime.

By how leaders react when something breaks at the worst possible time.

I remember a moment when someone flagged a problem early. It was inconvenient. My first reaction was irritation. I felt it before I processed it.

I paused. Took a breath. And listened.

That moment mattered more than any growth framework we had rolled out. Not because the issue was huge, but because everyone else was watching how much space was actually allowed.

A Question Worth Sitting With

I still believe in processes. They matter. I just don’t expect them to create growth on their own.

These days, when growth slows, I ask a different question. Not What framework are we missing? but What kind of environment are we creating every day?

So here’s the question I’ll leave you with.

If growth in your team were a living thing, would it feel like it’s being supported… or constantly boxed in for its own safety?

The answer usually explains everything.

Regards,
Rupesh