What Watching My Daughter Solve a Rubik’s Cube Reminded Me About Scalable Growth
Last weekend, I watched my daughter do something that, on the surface, seemed like a small win—but the more I thought about it, the more it felt like a perfect metaphor for how real growth actually works.
She learned how to solve a 3×3 Rubik’s Cube.
The first time she picked it up, it looked impossible. Random colors. No obvious starting point. Every move made things look worse before they got better. It took her about three hours of focus, frustration, and trial-and-error to finally solve it.
But here’s the part that mattered.
Once she learned the process—the steps, the sequence, the logic behind each move—everything changed. Now she can solve the same cube in under two minutes. Not because she memorized the cube, but because she understands how to solve the problem.
Then she moved on to a 4×4 cube.
And suddenly, she was back at the beginning.
Different structure. More complexity. New edge cases. The same instinct to twist pieces around—but that alone no longer worked. She had to slow down again, learn a new framework, and re-anchor herself in the fundamentals before speed returned.
Watching this unfold was a powerful reminder of something I see every day in business.
Growth Feels Chaotic Until You Have a Framework
Most leadership teams don’t struggle because they lack effort, intelligence, or ambition.
They struggle because growth—like a scrambled cube—looks fragmented when you don’t yet have a clear method for solving it.
Revenue is coming from different places. Sales feels dependent on a few individuals. Marketing activity exists, but impact is unclear. Systems don’t talk to each other. Everyone is busy, but progress feels uneven.
In that state, the natural reaction is to twist faster:
Hire another salesperson
Add a new tool
Launch another campaign
Push harder on relationships
Sometimes that helps in the short term. Often it just creates a different kind of mess.
What changed everything for my daughter wasn’t speed—it was structure.
Process Turns Effort into Leverage
The Rubik’s Cube isn’t solved by intuition. It’s solved by a repeatable sequence of moves that work regardless of how scrambled the cube starts.
Business works the same way.
Once a team understands:
How demand is created
How opportunities are qualified and advanced
How value is communicated consistently
How execution is reinforced through systems and process
…growth becomes explainable. Predictable. Teachable.
That’s when effort starts to compound.
It’s also why teams that “finally get it” often experience a sudden acceleration. They aren’t working harder—they’re executing inside a framework that turns activity into momentum.
The Jump from 3×3 to 4×4 Is the Real Lesson
Here’s the part most people miss.
Knowing how to solve a 3×3 cube does not mean you automatically know how to solve a 4×4.
The principles are similar, but the problem is more complex. New failure points emerge. Old shortcuts stop working. The margin for error shrinks.
This is exactly what happens when companies grow:
Founder-led sales → team-based sales
Relationship-driven revenue → process-driven revenue
Single system → multi-system execution
One market → multiple verticals
What worked before doesn’t break because it was wrong—it breaks because it was designed for a simpler problem.
At that moment, teams have two choices:
Keep twisting faster and hope experience carries them through
Step back, relearn the fundamentals, and build a framework designed for the next level of complexity
The companies that scale choose the second path—even though it feels slower at first.
Speed Comes After Understanding
My daughter didn’t become fast by trying to be fast.
She became fast by understanding the structure of the problem.
That’s the counterintuitive truth about growth:
Clarity precedes speed
Process precedes scale
Structure precedes performance
Once the framework is in place, execution accelerates naturally. Without it, effort just reshuffles the pieces.
Growth isn’t about solving the cube once.
It’s about building a system that lets you solve any version of it—again and again—as the problem gets bigger.
Growth feel fragmented or harder than it should be?
You’re not alone. Many teams are working hard—but without a unifying execution framework, marketing activity and sales effort don’t compound into consistent, qualified pipeline.
At OAKSTREET, we help companies build orchestrated growth platforms—aligning people, process, and technology into a single, scalable revenue motion.
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