When Your Company Is in Rapid Growth, but You Are in Stable State

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

When Your Company Is in Rapid Growth but You Are in Stable State

Sometimes the organization sprints while you hold a steady pace. That contrast can feel awkward—especially in a culture that celebrates speed—but stability is not a flaw. Without people who build, keep, and repair the foundations, rapid growth collapses under its own weight. This article offers a practical way to thrive as a steady operator inside a surge environment: how to recognize your value, handle new or recurring demands that sit beyond your stabilizing strengths, say “no” (or “not yet”) with tact, ask for specificity when you’re open to helping, and offer the security your team needs as you remain steady.

Owning Your Value: Stability Is System Capital

Stable‑state strengths—consistency, depth, documentation, quality control, calm handoffs, predictable delivery—are the assets that make scaling possible. In rapid growth, these strengths:

  • Protect trust: users experience fewer regressions and clearer promises.
  • Lower organizational anxiety: teams know where the floor is.
  • Multiply output: clear runbooks and repeatable processes let others move faster safely.

Name your strengths plainly (e.g., “I maintain SLOs,” “I make handoffs crisp,” “I keep the runbooks true,” “I reduce variance”). Visibility prevents your steadiness from being mistaken for passivity.

The Stark Dichotomy—and How to Stand in It

Rapid growth rewards reversible experiments and fast triage. Stable state rewards reliability and refined craft. You can respect the sprint while anchoring the system. Your stance:

  • Keep the core healthy (SLAs/SLOs, quality gates, incident hygiene).
  • Offer time‑boxed support to surge work when it intersects your lane.
  • Decline or redirect demands that would degrade the floor you are sworn to protect.

When New or Recurring Demands Arrive Beyond Your Lane

Before you answer, run a quick triage:

  1. Fit: Is this inside my strengths or would it erode core reliability?
  2. Specifics: What is the exact outcome, owner, and deadline? (If vague, ask.)
  3. Cost: What core obligations would slip if I take this?
  4. Alternatives: Is there a safer way I can help (advice, review, template, limited pilot)?

If the ask threatens the floor, you are obligated to protect the system—by reshaping, rerouting, or declining.

Words for “No” (and “Not Yet”) That Keep Trust

Use calm, specific language that honors the need and defends the foundation:

  • Protect the floor: “I can’t take this on without risking our SLOs on X. If keeping X steady is priority, I recommend Y owns this request.”
  • Offer an alternative: “I can’t run it end‑to‑end, but I can provide the checklist and do a 30‑minute review before launch.”
  • Time‑box a contribution: “I can give this two hours this week to unblock you; after that I need to return to Z.”
  • Sequence, don’t refuse: “Happy to pick this up after A ships on Tuesday. If earlier is essential, we’ll need to pause A—can you confirm?”
  • Escalate trade‑offs transparently: “Taking this means slipping B by three days. Which should we optimize for?”

These phrases are not excuses. They are how stable operators keep the promise of reliability while remaining collaborative.

When You’re Willing—but Need Specificity

If you’re open to the work, ask for a reverse brief to avoid ambiguity:

  • “Can you be a little more specific for me? What does ‘done’ look like here?”
  • “What’s the single outcome you need and by when?”
  • “What constraints should I honor (compliance, quality gates, handoffs)?”
  • “Who decides if trade‑offs come up, and what’s the review date?”
  • “What would you like me to own vs. advise?”

Capture the answers in a three‑line note (Outcome → Owner → When) and share it back. Clarity is your protection and theirs.

Offering Stability and Security While Others Sprint

You can be the calm center without becoming the catch‑all. Focus on high‑leverage anchors:

  • Guardrails: Keep definitions of “done,” quality checks, and release criteria current and visible.
  • Runbooks & checklists: Short, true, and used. Update after every real incident, not just in theory.
  • Onboarding: Make first‑week success repeatable; stabilize the intake of new teammates.
  • Interfaces: Own one critical handoff (e.g., support → engineering) and make it flow.
  • Status clarity: Publish concise, regular updates that reduce anxiety (“green/yellow/red + one sentence”).

These contributions let surge teams move faster without tearing the fabric.

Scripts for Common Moments

Recurring ad‑hoc asks: “I see three similar requests. Let’s route them through the intake form so we can triage once and keep the queue honest.”

Pressure to cut corners: “We can ship today and stay within guardrails if we drop feature C; otherwise we risk a rollback. Preference?”

Ambiguous emergencies: “Is this user‑impacting now, or reputational risk later? That determines whether we pause current work.”

Being cast as the ‘always available’ person: “I’m off‑call after 6 p.m. If we need 24/7 cover, we should add a rotation.”

Boundaries That Keep You Steady (and Useful)

  • Visible capacity: Keep a simple WIP limit and show your current load. Steady operators are transparent operators.
  • Office‑hour blocks: Two short daily windows for quick consults; everything else through intake.
  • Review dates: Any temporary exception gets a sunset.
  • Handoff, not hoard: Document, teach, and transfer—don’t become a dependency.

Partnering With Surge Colleagues

Think “complement, not compete.” Offer to review risk on their pilots, template their repeated wins, and steward roll‑ins from scrappy experiment to stable practice. Ask for reciprocity: when your floor work is at risk, they back your guardrails. This mutual respect keeps culture healthy.

Showing the Value of Steadiness (So It’s Respected)

Translate stability into outcomes leaders care about:

  • Fewer incidents / faster MTTR
  • Lower variance in cycle time
  • Onboarding time reduced and retained quality
  • Customer‑facing reliability metrics holding during launches

Share one‑pagers monthly. Calm data wins more permission than heroic stories.

If You Feel Left Behind

It’s normal to wonder if you “should” speed up. Remember: stable state is a discipline. If you want a stretch, choose one surge‑adjacent skill to practice (e.g., rapid risk assessment, reversible change design) without abandoning your base. You are part of the same song at a different tempo.

A Simple 30–60–90 Plan for Stable Operators in Surge Companies

Days 1–30: Anchor. List your core obligations and guardrails. Publish your WIP limit and office hours. Create or refresh the intake path. Capture three scripts for ‘no,’ ‘not yet,’ and ‘be more specific.’

Days 31–60: Amplify. Turn one fragile handoff into a smooth lane. Update two runbooks after real use. Start a monthly one‑pager that quantifies stability wins.

Days 61–90: Align. Agree with leadership on when you activate for surge (tripwires, scope, review date). Mentor two teammates on foundation work so stability scales beyond you.

Closing Encouragement

You are not the brake; you are the ballast. In a culture of speed, your steadiness is the reason anything stands on its own. Say “no” when the floor is at risk, ask for specificity when you’re willing to help, and keep the core healthy so others can sprint safely. Stable people are the quiet architects of durable growth. Your work is essential—especially when everyone else is moving fast.