Sector · Scale-ups & Growth Companies
When the culture that built the company has to outlive its founders.
IMPROV Communication helps scale-ups and growth companies carry their culture through the two moments that most often break it: rapid headcount growth, and mergers and acquisitions. The trust and energy that made the company worth joining live, at first, in the founding team — and somewhere between 30 and 200 people, or on the day a deal closes, they have to start living in everyone else. Our methodology combines Applied Improv with emotional intelligence and the EPIC Leadership framework to make that transfer real, at the level of everyday behaviour.
The challenge
Every scale-up hits the same wall. The product works, the funding is in place, the headcount is growing — and the thing that made the company special starts to strain. The founding team could read each other's minds; new hires cannot. Decisions that used to happen over a coffee get stuck in long message threads, psychological safety erodes as hierarchy grows, and the culture that attracted talent becomes the thing talent complains about. Investors see it too: McKinsey reports that investors attribute 65% of portfolio-company failures to people and organisational issues.
Growth through acquisition raises the stakes further. Research by Baruch Lev and Feng Gu, analysing 40,000 deals over four decades and published in Fortune in 2024, found that 70–75% of acquisitions fail to deliver their intended value. And when McKinsey surveyed nearly 1,100 M&A leaders on why integrations miss their targets, the most common reason was the human side — a lack of cultural fit, and friction between the two companies: two groups of people expected to function as one team, each with their own habits, language and loyalties. For a growth company, a merger resets the clock on the very trust it spent years building.
Underneath both moments sits the same question: how does a culture survive the people who created it? Behaviour is what transfers it — value statements never have — and behaviour can be built deliberately.
What leaders experience with us
Our trainings are built for the pace and pragmatism of growth companies. Through experiential exercises that mirror real dynamics — the new hire deciding whether it's safe to speak, the two legacy teams sizing each other up, the founder learning to let go — people feel what the culture is supposed to feel like, rather than reading about it in an onboarding deck. The five guiding principles give the whole company a shared language that travels faster than any handbook, and the structured follow-up makes the new behaviours hold while the organisation keeps changing around them.
Outcomes
- →A culture that scales beyond the founding team — carried by the people who joined last, not just the people who started it
- →Newly merged and acquired teams that build trust and shared ways of working quickly, instead of politely co-existing
- →Leaders who keep psychological safety intact while headcount doubles and the ground keeps moving
Relevant offerings
How we work with this sector.
Scaleups
Scaling Teams Without Breaking the Culture
Between 30 and 200 people, the culture that attracted talent starts to strain. We help scaleup leadership teams build the trust, communication and leadership habits to scale without losing what made them special.
1–2 days or 6-month leadership programme · 10–25 per facilitator
Learn more →Mergers
Making Mergers Work
70–75% of acquisitions fail to deliver their intended value — and it is almost always the human side, not the strategy. We build trust, shared language and collaborative habits across newly merged teams.
1–2 days and/or 6-session programme · scales across many teams
Learn more →Psychological safety
Psychological Safety Training
As hierarchy grows and new hires arrive, the safety that fuelled early candour erodes. We rebuild the conditions where people speak up, challenge each other, and surface problems before they compound.
Half-day to multi-session programme · intact teams or leadership groups
Learn more →Leadership
Leadership Training
Founders and first-time managers need to lead differently as the company grows. We develop the presence, empathy and behaviours that scale with the team — grounded in the EPIC Leadership framework.
Modular programme · designed around your leadership population
Learn more →