Get it, Don’t Get it –

Why Founders should eat their greens

We love working with Founders and Families. And with Founder legacy businesses. More anon.

Founder-led businesses have a driving energy, with singular ambition and a set of personal values often acting as a proxy for business strategy. It is exciting, unpredictable, dynamic – future focused, with little time for self-doubt, or room for introspection. It is fun and intuitive.

The business grows through their energy and genius, and through the small group of disciples who are close in; these followers have learnt through osmosis. They understand the Founder Vision and are trusted.

This is all fine and dandy, whilst the business is small or in one geography. But as the business scales, we have witnessed the tendency to bring in “professionals”.  And, sadly, sometimes at this point there is a disconnect between the Founding Vision and Ways of Working, and the professional approach from other businesses.

Here we begin to hear the phrase – Get it, Don’t Get it. “The X person now heading up finance, she really doesn’t get it.” “He came from Y, strange he doesn’t get it.”

To which our response is always the same: how can we help her/him Get it. What do we need to put in place to bridge from the genesis of the business to a future state?

For us, this is Definition and Codification of Purpose. A formal process of analysis and investigation that allows the Founder, partners, leadership to consider the original Vision and Ambition in the light of a changing competitor and consumer context.

In our experience, many Founders are resistant and reluctant to write things down. Somehow, they think the very process of documentation might damage or weaken the entrepreneurial energy and spontaneity so many Founders like.

But, without this codification, there are multiple circles of disappointment. Founders and Families who embark upon this process find that by interrogating and documenting Purpose – they are in fact enshrining what is important – the Purpose acts as a Business Driver, proving both inspiration and instruction; it is helpful to new folk, and old; it ensures that the Purpose does not leave with the Founder, but instead is dynamic and powerful – clarifying and amplifying the fundamentals and the differentiators for future success.

In our experience, Founders get to a point where they are ready to leave their own companies; or companies get to a point where they want to exit their Founders. The Founders have turned into Mess Fairies, bypassing new leaders to speak and direct the old guard. This is when the situation is frayed, and a way to resolve this is through a common Purpose, a shared set of principles, values, and ambition – which unites the past and the future, old guard and new, and acts as a beacon the future, as well as testament to the past.

This process should be critical, and constructive, it must be collaborative and it must be led by the top table across all functions of the organisation. Sometimes this is very straightforward, sometimes very emotional. Therefore the design of the project – engagement, collaboration, participation – all as important as market analysis, robust investigation, and interrogation of legacy strategies and plans.

A Circus approach places everyone in the round – everyone able to consider constructs and scenarios with fresh eyes and energy for the future. Careful, sensitive work which should be uplifting for the Founder and their company. Greens can taste delicious too.

Written by Dilys Maltby 

See Dilys in conversation on this topic here and here 

See films on Founders here

Header image: illustration by Nick Maland