The biggest barrier to growth? It might be you

Human Resources: People Puzzles

They get there by being brilliant at the thing that built it, making decisions, holding every relationship, carrying every judgement call.

And for years, that’s what makes it work.

Then the business grows, and the same instincts start to slow it down: decisions queue up for one person’s sign-off, structure remains informal and communication is often chats in corridors, lacking a consistent rhythm.

It rarely looks like a crisis, but it can become one.

This pattern crops up across every sector I’ve worked in, and it was just starting to show at House of Harmony, one of Suffolk’s best-known kitchen and bathroom specialists, when I first met Managing Director Chris Beale.

House of Harmony has been trading in Bury St Edmunds since 1981, built on design expertise, quality installation and a strong family culture. Chris had ambitious plans: growing turnover from £1.6m to £7m by 2030, opening new showrooms and expanding into new markets. But almost every operational decision still ran through him, which is fine for a small team but not for rapid growth. Chris recognised this and invested in its future; he brought us in to help.

As a fractional people director, I worked with House of Harmony for over five months, with focused days each month rather than full-time. What mattered more was what happened between visits to keep things moving. With only three people involved – Chris and two senior leads – there was none of the lengthy decision-making that slows bigger teams down. We agreed on something and it got done, often before my next visit, building momentum that outweighed time spent on-site.

Together, we built a strategy the whole business could see, redesigned the structure around two new senior roles, put a proper communication rhythm in place, and defined ‘The Harmony Way’ to carry the culture through growth. We also tackled the details that rarely get a headline: customer triage, health and safety, and the management information required to run the business, not just work in it.

Chris put it simply: “We’ve been in business for over 40 years and I’ve always known what we’re good at. What I didn’t have was the structure, the strategy or the processes to take the business to the next level. Mark helped us get all of that in place in a remarkably short period of time.”

Small team, fast change

It’s tempting to assume transformation needs a big team, a long timeline or an outside system. Often the opposite is true: the fastest-changing businesses just need a handful of people who trust each other enough to decide and move, not debate.

House of Harmony’s growth numbers tell one story. The pace of change behind them matters more – three people who trusted each other enough to agree on a plan and move fast. That same pace will carry the business from £1.6m to £7m without losing the family culture that built it.

Main picture shows the team at House of Harmony.