Process matters. In fact, any start-up is searching not only for the modern phrase “product-market fit”—a proven solution to a problem that people will pay to fix—but also for a process for achieving this repeatedly and at scale.

Corporate and even start-up managers are implicitly or explicitly charged with managing these processes, ensuring that whatever has been designed is followed and executed. Managers manage people, yes, but what they are rewarded and measured on isn’t a bunch of happy direct reports: It’s the execution of processes within their departmental and team area. The expectation and reality are often that bigger-picture thinking, strategy, and direction come from higher up the org chart.

But inherent in managers “managing the process” above all else are hidden dangers. In today’s fast-moving economy, with company lifespans plummeting and disruption endemic, even successful start-ups quickly need what several business leaders have termed their “second curve”: new product-market fit cycles as markets evolve and as earlier instances plateau or are hit by disruption or changing consumer needs.

Without naming names, it’s easy to see from the outside in where some household name start-ups have struggled with this over the past decade. I have also seen in my own career instances of the same dynamic up close, in businesses where sales begin to flatline, and panicky executives respond by cutting people to maintain cosmetic profitability (and/or sizeable investments in R&D) in lieu of being in a position to unfurl new initiatives, products, or services with quicker........

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