Why Clarity Is the Most Underrated Growth Strategy in Business

Clarity is not about having all the answers. It is about knowing what matters most, who is responsible for what, and how decisions get made. When clarity is present, teams move faster, leaders feel calmer, and customers experience consistency. When it is missing, even the best strategies struggle to land and frustration levels sky rocket! 

Let’s unpack what lack of clarity looks like in practice, why more choice often leads to less productivity, and how founder bottlenecks form. We'll explore how organisational design, service design, design thinking, and new ways of work help create clarity that sticks. 

1. Competing Priorities: When Everything Feels Important 

This often shows up as teams working hard but pulling in different directions. Sales is focused on growth. Operations is trying to stabilise delivery. Marketing is chasing visibility. Leadership is reacting to everything at once. 

On paper, all these priorities make sense. In reality, they compete for the same time, energy, and attention. 

What this looks like inside a business 

• Teams constantly switch focus as new requests come in 

• Projects start but stall before completion 

• People feel busy but struggle to explain what progress looks like 

• Meetings multiply because alignment keeps slipping 
  

From an organisational design perspective, this usually means priorities are not clearly translated into roles, decision rights, and workflows. The strategy exists, but it has not been designed into the day-to-day structure of the business. 

From a new ways of work lens, this creates reactive work patterns. Teams respond to urgency rather than intention. Energy gets spent on coordination instead of outcomes. 

How clarity changes this 

Clarity does not remove complexity, but it gives teams a shared lens for decision-making. When priorities are clear: 

• Teams can say no with confidence 

• Trade-offs are understood, not personal 

• Work is sequenced instead of stacked 

There are many helpful tools that can prevent businesses and teams from falling into this trap. One oldie but a goodie is the Eisenhower Matrix (you will even find great templates on Miroverse). As a leader, team leader, or individual, take your full plate of to-dos and plot them here. Focus on your top five priorities at a time, and be intentional about where your energy goes. A useful rule of thumb is to spend at least 20% of your time in the not urgent space. This is where medium-term growth, strategy, and clarity live, not just immediate tasks.  

2. Too Many Choices: Why More Options Reduce Productivity 

When teams are unclear about direction, they are often given more options instead of clearer guidance. More tools. More initiatives. More ways to solve the same problem. 

The result is decision fatigue. 

What this looks like in practice 

• Teams debate how to do the work instead of doing the work 

• Different tools are used for the same task 

• Standards are unclear or constantly changing 

• Decisions get delayed because no option feels “right enough” 

  
  

From a service design perspective, this creates inconsistency across the customer journey. Customers experience the same service differently depending on who they interact with. 

Internally, productivity drops because people spend energy choosing rather than executing. 

How clarity restores momentum 

Clarity reduces choice in the right places. It defines principles, boundaries, and defaults so teams do not have to reinvent decisions every day. 

• Clear service principles guide how work is delivered 

• Agreed ways of working remove unnecessary debate 

• Decision frameworks replace endless discussions 

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This is where new ways of work matter. The goal is not rigid rules, but shared agreements that free teams to move faster with confidence. 

There is a lot we can learn from Amazon here, do yourself a favour and look at their leadership Principles (something we can help you with as part of our New Ways of Work offering). The beauty in this learning is that These principles are not slogans - they are practical decision filters. 

3. Founder Bottlenecks: When Everything Comes Back to One Person 

Founder bottlenecks rarely come from ego. They come from care. 

Founders carry the vision. They know the customers. They understand the history. Over time, decisions naturally flow back to them because it feels safer, faster, or easier. 

Until it isn’t. 

What this looks like inside growing businesses 

• Teams wait for approval before acting 

• The founder becomes involved in small operational decisions 

• Growth slows despite increased demand 

• The founder feels exhausted and indispensable 

  
  

From an organisational design perspective, this signals unclear decision authority. Roles exist, but ownership is blurred. Accountability is implied, not designed. 

From a new ways of work view, this creates dependency instead of empowerment. 

How clarity enables teams to decide independently 

Empowering teams does not mean removing leadership. It means designing decision-making intentionally. 

• Clear role definitions show who owns which decisions 

• Decision guardrails replace micromanagement 

• Service design clarifies what “good” looks like for customers 

• Design thinking helps teams learn through small, safe experiments 

  
  

When clarity is built into structures and ways of working, teams stop asking for permission and start taking responsibility. The founder shifts from being the bottleneck to being the enabler. 

Where to Start When Everything Feels Unclear 

If any of this feels familiar, the good news is that clarity does not require a full reset or a massive transformation to begin. 

Start small and start intentionally. 

Begin by asking three simple questions: 

What actually matters most right now for the business? 

Where are decisions slowing down or coming back to one person? 

Where are teams doing work that does not clearly move the business forward? 

Clarity often emerges not from adding more, but from removing noise. Reducing competing priorities. Simplifying choices. Making decision ownership visible. When these pieces start to align, momentum follows. 

The most effective starting point is rarely a tool or a template. It is creating space to step back, see the system as it really is, and design what needs to change with intention. This is where structure, service design, and new ways of work come together to support real progress. 

If you are ready to move from feeling busy to feeling focused, and from reactive to deliberate, we are always happy to help you map that first step. Sometimes all it takes is a fresh perspective and the right conversation to turn complexity into clarity.