Many growth teams and founders often find themselves frustrated when growth initiatives don't yield the expected results. Tactics that worked for others fall flat, and success seems elusive and unpredictable. Why is that?

The truth is, most teams are operating under a false assumption: that growth is linear, controllable, and can be unlocked through isolated tactics. But real growth doesn’t work like that—because businesses aren’t simple machines. They’re complex systems.

The Metaphor That Explains It All

To understand how complexity works, we can turn to an old Sufi parable: The Blind Men and the Elephant.

Beyond Ghor, there was a city where all the inhabitants were blind.

One day, a king arrived with his army, bringing along a mighty elephant—an animal none of the people had ever encountered. Curious and eager, several blind men ran to examine it, each touching a different part.

One, touching the ear, said, "It’s wide and rough—like a rug."
Another, grabbing the trunk, declared, "No, it’s long and hollow—like a pipe."
A third, holding a leg, insisted, "You're both wrong. It’s like a pillar."

Each of them was right—and wrong. Each had a partial truth, but none could grasp the full reality of the elephant.

The moral: you cannot understand a system by only knowing its parts.

This metaphor is strikingly relevant for how most companies operate. In modern organizations, every team is blind to some degree—seeing only their side of the customer journey.

• Marketing sees awareness and acquisition.

• Product sees activation and engagement.

• Sales sees conversion.

• Customer success sees retention.

  
  

Each department builds strategies and tracks KPIs based on their own narrow field of view. The result? Fragmented efforts, misaligned goals, and a distorted understanding of what really drives growth.

Embracing the Company as a Complex System

If we want to unlock true, sustainable growth, we need to shift our mindset. We must stop acting like blind men describing the elephant—and start acting like system thinkers.

Here’s how we approach this challenge:

1. Data as a Unifying Force

Data is the foundational layer for system thinking. But not just any data—shared, integrated, and accessible data. A single source of truth allows teams to make decisions based on a complete picture of the customer, not just a slice.

2. A 360-Degree Customer View

We need to create mechanisms to observe the customer across all touchpoints—marketing, product, support, sales—and synthesize those signals into a coherent profile. This unlocks previously invisible patterns and opportunities.

3. Breaking Down Departmental Silos

Organizational silos are one of the biggest barriers to understanding and scaling growth. Cross-functional collaboration isn’t optional—it’s essential. Teams must be incentivized to collaborate, share learnings, and align around outcomes, not outputs.

4. Redefining Success Metrics

Traditional KPIs reinforce narrow thinking. We need new metrics that reflect the system as a whole—a holistic view of an organization and customers.—metrics that go beyond funnels and dashboards.

5. Understanding Growth as Emergent

Isolated actions within each stage of the AARRR framework (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue) don’t lead to compounding growth. Growth is emergent: it arises when multiple, interdependent factors align. It's not about finding one silver bullet, but orchestrating dozens of coordinated actions over time.

Toward Transformational Growth

Growth is not a switch to be flipped—it’s a system to be nurtured.

If we want to build companies that grow consistently and meaningfully, we must develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding of how the parts of our business interact. We must stop looking for isolated wins and start designing for interconnected impact.

The elephant is in the room. It’s time we see all of it.