Molt!

Humans have it easy: Our skeletons are on the inside.

The lobster is not so lucky. Every year or two, as the waters warm and the lobster enters its seasonal growth spurt, it begins to push up against the boundaries of its hard outer shell. The lobster’s hormones change, telling the shell to soften and then split open around the abdomen. The lobster wriggles free and leaves the old shell behind. This process is called molting, and it’s dangerous: Ten percent of lobsters die from it. It’s also an opportunity: Molting lobsters can regenerate lost limbs and even eyes.

Organizations molt too. Any growing team or department or company needs to periodically shed its too-small shell and grow a new one. Of course, an organization’s exoskeleton is much more abstract: It exists in the form of management hierarchies and KPIs and meetings and so on. And though organizations have more choice in the timing than the lobster does, they can’t really resist molting. Shedding the old and building the new is what growth requires. Molt, or die.

Molting is just the most dramatic phase of a longer cycle. After wriggling free, the soft-shelled lobster must harden again, and in the meantime it must survive with little protection. Just staying fed can be tricky when one is unwilling to venture out in the absence of armor. All other work slows as the new shell hardens.

The new shell provides room to grow for another year or two. If it were any bigger, the lobster wouldn’t be able to move under the weight. So not so long later, the molting process repeats itself: Splitting abdomen, wriggling free, soft shell, the whole deal. Organizations experience the same phases, but instead of everyone’s midsection splitting open you see re-orgs and people complaining about too few meetings and then people complaining about too many meetings and the introduction of OKRs and QBRs and so on, until it’s time to start the whole cycle over again.

Hermit crabs have developed a more efficient system for keeping their shells the right size: They trade up. When things start to get cramped, hermit crabs go in search of a roomier shell, and when they find one they simply slip out of the old and into the new. The ocean floor is littered with old shells, so if you can find one that fits, why go through the trouble of growing a new one from scratch? (For that matter, if you’re an organization that has outgrown it’s current shell, why invent a new one from scratch? Re-use something that’s already worked for another organization.)

Hermit crabs aren’t picky. If they’re ready to upgrade but can’t find the perfectly sized shell, they will commandeer a piece of stray trash instead. They have been known to use thimbles, bottle caps, tin cans, coconut shells, and so many other scraps for protection. Some of these synthetic shells are worse than others. Modern plastics, for instance, are so slippery that a hermit crab can climb in but can’t climb out when it’s time to upgrade. Over half a million hermit crabs a year are estimated to die from making the mistake of donning slippery plastic. (As an organization, be careful commandeering something shiny that looks deceptively like a good shell — it might just kill your org.)

The process for sharing information and trading shells is quite advanced. In some cases, groups of as many as 20 hermit crabs will form what’s called a vacancy chain, lining up in order by size and then all at once trading up their shells. (This video of the process is a delight.) Coordination and communication can reduce vulnerability.

What’s particularly elegant, and often unsettling, about these growth cycles is that they are unconstrained. The just repeat themselves, with decreasing frequency, as a consequence of growth. Each time you return to the same part of the spiral you think, “Didn’t we just do this? What’s even the point?” But in order to keep growing, you must molt. You must upgrade your shell. And then you must do it all over again, and again, and again. (The shape of the spiral brings to mind another shelled sea creature, the nautilus.)

Another elegant pattern: This same cycle plays out for individuals, teams, and organizations. Just as a growing company must shed its old shell and grow a new one to keep growing, so too must you.

Molting is just as scary for the individual as it is for the org. You become vulnerable, unsafe, uncertain. Worse yet, these cycles tend to synchronize: Just as the organization begins to change dramatically, it will expect the same from you. That’s a lot of change at once.

Self-awareness is a useful tool for dealing with the changes. If things in your career, your team, or you organization suddenly start to go much better or worse, ask yourself, “Have we entered a new phase in the molting cycle?” Each phase has different demands, so knowing which you’re in will help you adjust. But you, like the organization, won’t be able to stop the cycle. Molt, or die. (Or less dramatically, molt, or move on to a different organization.)

This is the price of growth. To grow, you must molt. You must upgrade your shell.

Thank you to Natalie for feedback as I tried to work this one out.