When Adding More Makes Everything Worse
Allison Dunn unpacks one of the five thinking traps that makes smart leaders fail: linear thinking. Using a real client example, she shows how adding people, tools, and process fixes can quietly create more complexity, lower profit per employee, and make growth feel harder over time. She also shares a practical question leaders can use to break the cycle and start solving the system instead of feeding the symptom.
Key topics
- In this episode, Allison Dunn introduces the third trap in her series on the five thinking traps that make smart leaders fail: linear thinking.
- She explains the “addition spiral,” where every new problem gets solved by adding more people, more tools, or more meetings.
- A technology services client grew from 25 employees to 75 in three years and tripled revenue, but profit per employee dropped 40% and growth became increasingly painful.
- The core issue was not growth itself, but the habit of responding to every breakdown with another hire or resource.
- Allison contrasts addition with multiplication, noting that hiring feels tangible and immediate, while system improvements are less visible but create lasting leverage.
- She identifies a hidden reason leaders stay stuck: addition makes them feel needed, while systems reduce dependency on them.
- The key question she recommends is: “What would make this unnecessary?” instead of “How do we handle this demand?”
- In the client example, unclear decision rights were causing communication breakdowns, and a simple decision framework took about three hours to create and eliminated most of the issue.
- A lack of standard project approach caused coordination problems, and a few hours of system design and training removed the need for 15 positions.
- The result was a 35% jump in profit per employee within six months.
- Allison closes by encouraging leaders to review their last three resource additions and ask whether they were multiplication moves or symptom management.
Timestamps
00:00 - The thinking trap hiding inside your org chart
00:30 - How a fast-growing company became less efficient
00:59 - The addition spiral: more hires, more complexity
01:30 - Why linear thinking makes more input seem like the answer
01:58 - Why addition feels safer than building systems
02:28 - The uncomfortable reason leaders resist system fixes
02:57 - The question that breaks the spiral: what would make this unnecessary?
03:25 - How nine hours of systems thinking replaced 15 positions
03:53 - Turning resource requests into system-fix conversations
04:23 - A weekly check on your last three additions
04:52 - Where this sits in Allison’s book Think First and what comes next
Think First
