My wife and I were out for a walk one morning when we came across a couple of young guys in a bit of bother. They'd parked their ute on a grassy verge overnight. Dew on the grass, a slight slope, and now the wheels were spinning in the mud.

Being a country boy, I knew they probably just needed a nudge. But they didn't know what to do, so they kept giving it more throttle. The wheels kept spinning. The hole kept getting deeper.

We gave them a push and off they went.

I hear the same thing from business leaders and owners all the time. "I feel like I'm spinning in the mud." Working harder than ever, getting nowhere, and digging deeper. Something's stopped working, and they can't quite put their finger on what.

Hitting the brick wall

Talk to anyone who leads or owns a growing business and they'll know exactly what I mean. I call it hitting the brick wall.

What's interesting is that leaders and owners usually feel it before they can see it. Frustrated. Stuck. Stressed. The fun's gone out of it. The momentum that used to come naturally now feels like pushing a ute uphill.

What's actually happening is a stage change. Each stage of growth brings its own kind of complexity. What worked brilliantly at the last stage stops working at the next one. And until you recognise that, you spin.

Monkeys with clothes

Here's a bit of perspective. Humans have been around for a couple of million years. We've lived in organised farming and city societies for about ten thousand of them, and the pace of change has only really taken off in the last couple of hundred.

From an evolutionary point of view, we're still monkeys with clothes on.

Our natural group size sits somewhere between eight and fourteen people. It's why so many military squads are that size. We're wired for family, band, village, tribe. We can build structures for bigger groups, but every step up brings a new kind of complexity.

That's not a metaphor. It's wiring. And it maps straight onto what happens as a business grows.

Going from eight people to fifteen, to twenty-five, to fifty isn't just more of the same. It's a different game each time. The systems that worked at one size break at the next. The way you led a team of twelve doesn't work with a team of forty. And the walls tend to show up at roughly the same headcounts, again and again.

First, a choice

Before anything else, you get to choose.

There's plenty of tut-tutting about owners who choose the boat, the bach and the BMW over growing the business. Most of it comes from people whose biggest business risk is injuring themselves with a stapler.

It's your business. You took the risk. It's your call.

But make it a conscious call. If you haven't really decided whether you want to grow, you'll spin in the mud forever without knowing why.

Every wall changes the picture

Here's the bit most leaders and owners miss.

Every brick wall means the picture of the business has to change. Who you serve. What you're world class at. What you'll stop doing. How decisions get made. Who does what.

And the person at the top usually sees the new picture first. You're out in it, talking to customers, feeling the friction. Your picture updates, bit by bit, in your head.

Your team's doesn't. They're still running the business that got you here. Not because they're slow, but because nobody's told them the picture has moved. Often not even you, because you didn't notice yours had shifted until you hit the wall.

So you end up with an owner or CEO pulling one way and a team pulling another, everyone working hard, and the wheels spinning.

Getting through

If you decide to go through the wall, get deliberate. In my experience it takes four things, in this order.

Get the owners clear. If there's more than one of you, start there. Why are we doing this? Where are we going? What should we do, and what shouldn't we? If the owners aren't on the same page, nobody else will be.

Bring the team onto the new picture. Not a memo. Not a slide deck. A real conversation, in the room, where the old picture gets put on the table next to the new one and people can see the gap. This is where the elephants come out. Let them. A team that will raise the real issues in the room, not in the car park afterwards, is the single biggest asset you've got at a wall.

Set a rhythm. You won't know how well the plan works until you're living it, and the world will keep moving while you do. So work in 90-day cycles. Plan, do, review, adjust, repeat. And come back to the bigger picture every year or so, because it will drift. It feels slower. It's actually faster, because you stop the things that aren't working sooner.

Check the platform and the people. Don't build your systems on an old corporate template. You're not building a machine; you're building something that can keep changing. And be honest about whether the people who were brilliant at the last stage are right for the next one. Walls are hard on teams. The business isn't the one some of them joined. Pretending otherwise helps no one.

Get a guide

A mate of mine is a seriously experienced tramper. Disappears into the bush for weeks. I once asked him why he still hires a guide when he goes to Nepal.

His answer: "I'll be on a well-worn path. But it's my first time on it. I don't know what I don't know. And the stakes are too high."

That's it, exactly.

Thousands of businesses have been through these walls before. But it's your first time. Having someone alongside who's been through it, or has guided plenty of others through it, saves a lot of spinning. An advisory board chair, a mentor, a coach, a facilitator for the team. The key word is relevant experience. Someone who's actually been in the mud.

Crashing through

You'll usually feel the wall before you see it. But the walls are predictable. Know where they tend to show up, and you can start getting ready before you hit.

Then it's your choice. And if you choose to go through, don't just push harder on the throttle.

Get clear. Get the team on the same picture. Get the rhythm going.

Good luck out there. And don't forget to have fun!