# What to fix first when a business breaks, and when that flips [Home](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en) › [Study](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study) › [Articles](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study/articles) author: [Axel Jedlitschka](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/about) published: 2026-10-13 updated: 2026-10-13 language: en reading time: 5 min topic: Organization source booklet: [What Breaks When You Grow](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/growth-breaks) Usually you fix the lines work passes through first, but when money runs out the order flips: promote first, and organise in the time the promotion buys. When several things break in a business at the same moment, the most expensive question is what to fix first. According to the booklet, you normally start with the lines that work and information pass through. When money is short, the order reverses: you promote first and bring in income, and you organise in the time that income buys. The booklet presents this as the opposite of what most people do. ## The ordinary rule: lines first The ordinary rule is simple. According to the source, when the business is getting nowhere, you check the communication lines first, meaning the ways requests, information and work pass from one person to another. The first thing to do is straighten them so they can be used easily, without strain. There is logic in that. When you are overloaded and not moving forward, you first check where the work gets stuck on its way, and only then how hard everyone is working. Suppose an owner who started with the lines and found that the average enquiry passed through four people. He cut it to two. Or an owner who timed how long a message took to get from the field to the office. It came to three days on average, and nobody had known. ## The exception: when money runs short, promote first Here is the exception, and according to the booklet it is the most important detail in the chapter. The source says that whoever tries to straighten the lines and the organisation in the face of a coming financial disaster will always be too late. So when a financial slump is in view, its instruction is to “always promote first and fast, ignoring the lines and orgs.” The lines and the organisation get straightened afterwards. By promote, the source means going out to bring work in, the way an owner does with marketing and outreach. The source explains why. Whoever first tries to put the organisation in order so as to use it for promotion will find the disaster has arrived before the order did. In its words, the result of reversing the sequence is always a smaller organisation. It also describes how this looks. Organisations that shrink put order first, so the only way left for them to save themselves is to cut staff. They should have, in the source's words, “promoted first and then reorganized in the time thus bought.” According to the booklet, the words the time thus bought are the heart of it. **Promotion buys time, and organising takes time.** So when time is the thing running out, the order reverses. The booklet describes a familiar pattern. A business in trouble closes itself off from the world to put things in order inside, and three months later it has to lay people off, because the tidying brought in no income. Suppose an owner who went into a weak quarter and stopped marketing until the processes were sorted. The next quarter was worse. Or an owner who hit a weak month and doubled her outbound outreach within the week. The mess stayed where it was, and now there was money to fix it. And the case the other way round: the same owner a year later, in the right order. Promotion first, and she sorted the processes out of the income that came in. ## Without taking the structure apart for today's target The exception has a limit, and the source gives the other side of the same coin. Promoting first is one thing. Taking the structure apart to hit today's target is something else entirely. The source describes the cost of hitting a target that way as the structure taken apart in every direction, and compares it to a game of musical chairs. So, it says, you have to hold the form of the organisation even under pressure. According to the booklet, promotion buys time, and taking the structure apart borrows against tomorrow. Suppose an owner who pulled the whole team onto one urgent job. The team met the deadline, and three other jobs ran two weeks late. Or a garage that moved a mechanic off scheduled maintenance onto a rush job. Two months later, two pieces of equipment had broken down. And the case the other way round: the same owner decides that one particular person never leaves maintenance. The urgent job takes a day longer, and everything else keeps moving. ## Organise while you cope, and know what it costs The source gives the simplest rule of all, with its two outcomes. Whoever does not organise while coping will see the coping turn into overwhelm. Whoever does will find the burden lighter and the prosperity greater. According to the booklet this means organising during the coping, neither instead of it nor after it. And what does it cost? The source says the estimate of how many people it takes to establish an organisation was too low by about ten times. That is why an hour here and there for building is never enough, and the booklet puts it down to an error of scale and no lack of effort on your part. The source stresses that this concerns you too. In its words, an organisation does not become more productive as it grows, so it cannot afford to do without the person whose job is to establish it. It says this explicitly about an organisation of three staff members. This chapter of the booklet has two exercises, one on the sequence and one on fixed time. After the final chapter it brings a practice section and a summary of ten lines. The order depends on the resource that is running out. When there is time, organise first. When the money runs out, promote first, and organise in the time the promotion buys. - [What Breaks When You Grow](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/growth-breaks): A name for the failure, a sequence that shows you where you stand in it, and one answer to the question of what comes first. --- [עברית](https://theonlyaxelj.com/he/study/articles/what-to-fix-first-when-growth-breaks) · [Español](https://theonlyaxelj.com/es/study/articles/what-to-fix-first-when-growth-breaks)