Why does growth create friction when it should create momentum?
Growing your company wasn't supposed to feel like this.
You remember when it was easier.
Not easy—you had less of everything back then—but easier. You knew every employee's name. A decision took an afternoon. When you said something once, it stuck.
Now the company is bigger and better. More capable people, better tools, and more experience in the room than you've ever had. And somehow it takes more out of you than it used to.
Decisions circle back around and priorities multiply until none of them are true priorities. Something got decided in April, and you're still explaining it in June. You added a policy because of one bad incident, then another, and now there's a stack of them nobody remembers the reason for.
The story your leadership team tells about the work isn't quite the same story your frontline tells. You've noticed, but you're not sure when that happened.
And you can't tell whether you have a strategy problem, an execution problem, or a people problem—because the big problems like sluggish sales and employee resistance to change present as all three.
Here's what almost nobody says out loud: none of this is evidence you've done something wrong. Every organization pulls apart as it grows. The distance between your people gets a little wider every quarter, and closing it costs energy—energy that used to go toward the work.
That's what friction does. It wears you and your people down.
It's not a mystery, and it's not a character flaw. It's measurable. And once you can see where it's leaking and why, you can do something about it.
Working with Me
I'm a scientist, so every session opens the same way: everybody in the room takes the same short assessment used in the Center's field research. The room's anonymous results go up on the screen a few minutes later, and we work through what they reveal: where each organization is spending energy on holding itself together instead of moving the work forward.
From there, I introduce Tight Loops™, a lens that explains the mechanics behind what's happening on the surface. Then we demystify how to solve the underlying problems.
Participants leave with three things:
- The symptom. Where their organization is leaking energy right now.
- The gap. Which counterforce of cohesion is weakest, and why it matters more than the others.
- The lever. The one thing to change first, and how you'll know it worked.
The work happens in the room, together. You'll leave having learned as much from each other as from me. And you'll leave knowing this isn't a personal failing. It's something every growing organization faces, and it's something you can actually do something about.
Session Formats
Peer Advisory Group — Half-day morning session. Built for chair-led CEO groups and their executive and key-leader equivalents. Members work their own data alongside peers running comparable organizations.
CEO Roundtable — Two hours, followed by an informal lunch. A small, invitation-only group of growth-stage business owners and CEOs. The lunch is where the conversation usually gets good.
Leadership Team Session — Half day or full day. Private to one company, designed for an executive team or any team carrying critical work. Because it's a single organization, we go further into what the data means in your specific context and what changes the following morning.
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I work with founders and CEOs who want to go faster, grow bigger, and flow better.
I've spent my career trying to understand why organizations lose energy as they grow.
I'm a U.S. Marine, I hold a Ph.D. in Psychology, and I teach graduate-level leadership at Boston College. I created Tight Loops, and I'm Executive Director of the Center for Organizational Drift, where we study how growing companies quietly come apart and what it takes to hold them together.
When a company scales, it doesn't usually lose capability. It starts spending a growing share of that capability holding itself together. That's the problem I work on.
What People Say
"During his presentation, my phone was buzzing with texts from audience members raving about how powerfully his message was landing. Matt has a rare talent for weaving in the unique dynamics of the local region, making his insights tailor-made for the audience. His unique insights gave our 800+ industry leaders practical tools they could implement immediately."
Genelle Taylor Kumpe | CEO, San Joaquin Valley Manufacturing Alliance
"He ticked all the boxes: effortless to work with, engaging onstage, and endlessly adaptable behind the scenes. A true pro who did it all and elevated the entire experience. I'd work with him again in a heartbeat."
Katie Jones | CEO, Nimble Group
"What stood out was how practical it was — he didn't just talk about empathy and purpose, he gave us frameworks we could actually use. Two years later, our leaders still quote him and the lessons he shared."
Nibal Petro Henderson | VP, Talent Development, ECG Management Consultants
