Growth sounds good. It is the story we all want to tell.

• More reach.

• More users.

• More features.

• More scale.

But there is a catch. When creative growth becomes a speed race, something gets lost.Often, it is the people doing the work.Invisible contributors feel this first. You are in the background, shaping the details. You care about the feel of things, the sharpness, the edges no one else notices. And in the speed trap, those edges start getting sanded down. CPOs, this is where your culture starts slipping.

You want to scale creativity. You want velocity and voice. You want outcomes fast but without the cost.

The truth is, creative growth at scale often celebrates the wrong signals:

• Output over insight

• Delivery over discernment

• Reach over resonance

It rewards the loudest idea. It glorifies the fastest hands. It erases the nuance. Invisible contributors start playing defence. You simplify. You shrink your ideas to fit the deadline.You stop speaking up. Eventually, your work becomes invisible not because it lacks value, but because the system lacks patience.Creative growth is not always visible. It is not always linear. It is often awkward, slow, resistant to polish.But in the speed trap, awkwardness is treated like inefficiency.And slowness is seen as weakness. CPOs, ask yourself: Where have you traded voice for volume? Who in your team is contributing quietly and being missed?

What types of creative growth are you unintentionally punishing? Growth that matters looks like depth, not just scale.

It shows up in hard questions, not quick outputs.It includes friction, not just flow. Invisible contributors, your value is not in the pace.It is in the push. The refusal to gloss over what matters. The care you put into the parts that are not easy to chart on a roadmap. CPOs, build space for friction. Let your contributors surface with the things that slow the system down because often those things are the truth.Growth should be a stretch. Not a sprint.