Your company is an organism; its cells need to divide to multiply, they need to differentiate to become something new. Don’t worry about what you’re going to lose—think about what you’re going to become.

As Pak’s painting reveals, this is a complete misunderstanding of the point of a team. We did not invent teams to remind individuals that they are not as important as the group. We created teams precisely because it was the best mechanism for maximizing the unique qualities of each individual. We sat around the fire, pondering how the heck we were going to solve our problems—building shelter, finding our way, taking down animals far bigger than each of us—and we peered through the smoke at our uniquely gifted brothers and our sisters.

Yet there are three barriers to scaling up, which we’ll discuss in the next chapter:

• Leadership: the inability to staff/grow enough leaders throughout the organization who have the capabilities to delegate and predict

• Scalable infrastructure: the lack of systems and structures (physical and organizational) to handle the complexities in communication and decisions that come with growth

• Marketing: the failure to scaleup an effective marketing function capable of attracting new customers, talent, advisors, and other key relationships to the business.

Thus, to overcome these barriers your team must master, using our tools, four fundamentals:

• In leading People, take a page from parenting: Establish a handful of rules, repeat yourself a lot, and act consistently with those rules. This is the role and power of Core Values. If discovered and used effectively, these values guide all the relationship decisions and systems in the company.

• In setting Strategy, follow the definition from the great business strategist Gary Hamel. You don’t have a real strategy if it doesn’t pass two tests: First, what you’re planning to do really matters to enough customers; and second, it differentiates you from your competition.

• In driving Execution, implement three key habits: Set a handful of Priorities (the fewer the better); gather quantitative and qualitative Data daily and review weekly to guide decisions; and establish an effective daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual meeting Rhythm to keep everyone in the loop. Those who pulse faster, grow faster.

• In managing Cash, don’t run out of it! This means paying as much attention to how every decision affects cash flow as you would to revenue and profitability.

CEOs often avoid these decisions because they involve executives who have become dear friends. We recognize that this is a touchy subject, but it must be faced if the organization is to grow. One option is for some of the early team members to help launch a new product or division. They are usually more comfortable in a start-up situation or working on a smaller team. And several of the early leaders might be relieved to have the burden of an increasingly important and complex function taken off their shoulders. You won’t know until you have these crucial conversations.

Teams need to be well-rounded, but their individual members don’t have to be.