A big thank you to all my guest authors who’ve written for Build this summer. The feedback from readers has been great and I’m super grateful to everyone who contributed an article.

This week I’ve been reflecting on a recent trip to an Oasis gig and my incessant desire to understand how things work behind the scenes. Some interesting parallels between founder-led businesses and predictably delivering stadium-scale experiences week-in, week-out.

I was sat in the cheap seats at a massive stadium gig at Wembley at the weekend – 90,000 people crammed in to watch a band that looked like ants from our seats.

But here’s the thing. Those rubbish seats gave us something the punters down front didn’t have: a helicopter view of the entire operation. And as a COO I was seriously impressed.

Watching the warm-up acts and stage set-up before the headliners came on got me thinking about founders and the lessons hiding in plain sight at these mega-events. Because when you strip away the pyros and band egos, what you’re really witnessing at that kind of gig is a masterclass in orchestrating controlled chaos.

One shot to get it right

Live events are brutal in their simplicity.

There’s no “let’s have another go tomorrow” or “we’ll patch that in the next sprint.” The artist has to deliver. The crowd, who’ve (mostly) paid a lot of money, expects an experience. Everything hinges on that single performance window.

As a founder how often do you get that luxury of a second try when it really matters? That client presentation. The product launch. The investor pitch. The parallels are stark.

But here’s where it gets interesting. The stadium doesn’t rely on hope and crossed fingers. Every single person, from the people selling pints to the lighting technicians, knows exactly what they’re supposed to do and when they’re supposed to do it.

Crystal clear roles and bulletproof processes

I watched something remarkable happen part way through the show. Suddenly dozens of phone torches started flickering in a small area in the middle of the crowd. Within a few seconds six medical staff with a stretcher were working their way through thousands of people to help.

They knew exactly what to look for. They’d seen that signal countless times before. They moved without hesitation while the music played on and everyone else carried on enjoying themselves, completely oblivious.

That’s what happens when roles are crystal clear and processes are bulletproof. No one’s stood around wondering “is this my job?” or “what do I do now?” They just get on with it.

How many founders can say the same about their teams? When something kicks off in your business, does everyone know their role? Or is there that awful moment of head-scratching and debate whilst the problem gets worse?

The power of decentralised control

But here’s the bit that really got me thinking. Despite the complexity – crowd control, security, CCTV, stage management, hospitality, technical crews – there isn’t a single central command centre with one person frantically directing everything.

Stadiums work because they have multiple co-ordinated points of control. The bar staff knew their patch inside out but didn’t need to coordinate with the riggers. The security team had their protocols but weren’t micromanaging the merchandise sellers.

Each area operated with remarkable autonomy, yet the whole thing hummed along beautifully. That happen because everyone understood not just their role, but also the boundaries of their responsibility.

What this means for scaling founders

As your business grows, the temptation for every founder is to keep everything flowing through you. After all you built this business from nothing. You might know every team member, every process, every quirk in the system.

But stadiums don’t work with one person making every decision – and neither do scaling businesses.

The magic happens when you can trust your team to handle their patch without constant oversight. When your head of sales doesn’t need your approval for every discount. When your operations manager can solve problems without escalating everything to you.

That requires two things you might be uncomfortable with: giving up control and getting serious about clarity.

Are your team’s roles as clear as those stadium staff? Do they know not just what they’re responsible for, but what they’re not responsible for? Can they act decisively when their bit of the business needs them to?

Because if they can’t, you’ll forever be the bottleneck in your own growth story.

What would your business look like if it ran with stadium-level clarity and decentralisation? And more importantly, what’s one role in your team that you could define more clearly this week?