Strategy isn’t the bottleneck for scaling. Execution is.
70% of strategies fail because execution breaks down.
Healthy organisations deliver 3x higher returns than unhealthy ones.
Fitness to Scale (FTS) is Scalewell’s proven organisational guidance system that shows leaders exactly where execution risk lives — and how to fix it.
In less than three weeks, we turn instinct into evidence and provide a roadmap that overcomes friction to clarify the path a healthier organisation that will scale.
What FTS delivers:
• Health Map – culture, leadership, and organisation strengths and gaps
• Risk Heatmaps – hidden friction points and dependency breakdowns
• Leadership Matrix – capability, cohesion, and gaps across the SLT
• Strategic Roadmap – prioritised actions with playbooks to develop Fitness
FTS doesn’t just show the gaps holding back strategy execution.
It tells leaders and investors where to act, who to involve, and how to change.
Scalewell’s Fitness to Scale overcomes barriers to scaling by enabling leaders, investors and their companies to:
Shape desired culture
Analyse the current culture and how it is supporting strategy
Codify the needed culture to achieve specific business outcomes
Define where to intervene to shape culture that drives performance
Strengthen leadership
Assess leadership performance, technical depth and values alignment systematically
Assess leadership’s ability to deliver the performance needed
Identify how and where to shape leadership for strategy delivery
Plan organisation development
Review organisation capabilities, change readiness and interdependencies
Pinpoint where the organisation is not supporting performance
Prioritise actions needed to ensure the organisation is designed to scale
The Fitness to Scale review provided vital new insights - the sheer depth of insights and presentation of data was empowering. Scalewell’s cross-organisation perspective has highlighted the key areas to focus on that will have the greatest impact.
— Dr Adam Blaxter Paliwala, CEO, Technology Blueprint
How it works
FTS is designed for maximum impact while making minimum demands on the time of busy leaders.
All leaders contribute an hour of their time to complete a survey, with sponsors providing two extra hours to input contextual information and join a debrief.
Over three weeks, FTS data is gathered, analysed and converted to recommendations to ensure robust and rapid conversion of insight to impact.
Who is it for?
• CEOs & Founders → validate instincts and see what’s really slowing growth
• Executive Teams → build cohesion, align priorities, and speed up decisions
• Investors & Boards → surface hidden execution risks before they cost returns
Why FTS?
• Fast, predictive, proven in 40+ scaling companies.
• The organisational MRI for execution
Want to learn more?
Not ready for FTS yet? Start with FTS Lite.
Early-stage founders don’t need heavy, generic diagnostics.
They need a sharp lens on execution risk that’s practical, predictive, and stage-relevant.
That’s what FTS Lite delivers.
What it measures:
Across 30 high-leverage indicators, FTS Lite analyses:
• Strategy & Vision
• Leadership & Team Capability
• Culture & Values
• Execution & Decision-Making
• Customer & Product
• Org Design & Scalability
• Financial & Operational Discipline
Who uses FTS Lite:
• Founders → self-awareness, delegation, team leverage
• Exec Teams → assess cohesion and focus
• Investors → due diligence, onboarding, portfolio
What you get:
• Heatmaps of execution strengths and risks
• Comparative insights (founder vs team, board vs execs)
• Narrative summaries, data tables, recommendations
• Optional leadership 360s and pulse checks
Why FTS Lite is different:
• Purpose-built for Seed → Series B
• Stage-relevant maturity scales
• Lightweight (< 20 mins per leader) but predictive of scale readiness
• Benchmarked across teams, leaders, and time
FTS Lite gives founders clarity, investors confidence, and boards transparency.
Your company is fit to grow. But is it fit to scale?
Spend 30 minutes with us to see your company through a sharper lens — and uncover what might be holding it back.
