Every entrepreneur’s greatest fear is getting kicked out the company s/he founded.
We’ve all been told that it is really simple to void this worst-case-scenario: “Make yourself indispensable to the business,” they say, “and you have got it!” That sounds real good, and it is true, it is not easy to do. A founder cannot be all things to all people. Realistically many of functions a founder performs starting-up a company can be just as well performed—if not better—by someone with more expertise later on (e.g. hiring, sales, programming, etc). If the whole of the core competencies you bring to your company do not add up to something far greater than the sum of their parts, your days are probably numbered because someone can always be brought in to perform one of your functions.
So how does a founder become indispensable to a company?
It is easy to say that the founder embodies the vision and the passion of the company, that without him or her it would not exist. But it is another thing to make sure that everyone, at all levels in your company, feels this to be the case. The best way to create and maintain passion for the company is for the founder to build emotional attachments with their employees. The more your staff trust and know you as a person (to be distinguished from “the boss”), the easier it is for them to adopt your value system, align themselves with your vision, and make your goals their own.
The same goes for your investors. The more emotionally attached they are to you, the more likely they are to see your goals as their own, to see their money invested in you, as much as in your company. Then they’ll be less likely to oust you.
Here are some of the things that I have done at my company, Yugma, to build emotional bonds with my won staff:
• I speak to my staff daily to address the issues that impact their work, and personal lives. This is especially true for our staff in India via a regular call with our Managing Director and a daily update from the development team through our chief architect. Then I address their concerns with my personal attention as needed.
• I communicate the good and bad news immediately Good and not so good things need to be shared with everyone, and quickly. People feel trusted when you keep them in the loop, and this way, things get fixed sooner rather than later.
• Face time for every employee I spend one-on-one time with every team member in our home office in Minnesota. I also travel to India twice a year for similar quality time with each member of our team there to reinforce our vision and goals. This commitment has really helped us to build a team that is committed and dedicated and runs like a well–oiled machine.
• Personal time for investors One of our directors, Ron, expressed an interest in visiting India with his wife. I offered to co-ordinate their trip with one of my own and play tour-guide. We traveled together for a week. I had the opportunity to learn about him personally in a completely different environment. They visited with my family and friends and had a great trip. We came back better friends, with Ron excited about Yugma all over again.
The Payoffs
In India, Ron conducted a private Q&A session with our employees Afterwards, he conveyed how clear it was that the staff understood what needed to be achieved, and some expressed to him that I was indispensable to the development process—amazing, since, I am in Minnesota. The team had essentially ‘paid me back.’ For his own part, Ron later took the lead in a subsequent round of financing.
Once you’ve built emotional attachments, the decision making processes of a staff member or investor will cease to be about the company alone. Recently, I’ve been working through some personal issues. Ron has stood by me with other directors making the process easier, and my position more secure. The decisions they make will—if unconsciously—serve their emotional attachments as well. The question of ‘should I work harder and longer to get this project done?’ or ‘should I invest again?’ and even, ‘should I bring in an outsider to run the company?’ ceases to be about what is best for the employee, or an IRR.
These decisions are also about their relationship with the founder, as a person, in whom they are equally invested. No founder’s job is never secure but Ron’s and my staff’s loyalty makes it more likely that I won’t be replaced at Yugma. This is how “building emotional attachment” can go a long way to making you indispensable to your company.
Um I needed this.}
True.
Also, not only will this save your job, it will often end up saving you the stress of employees leaving at short notice.
I’ve been lucky to see how my dad operated his business … being the MD, he still bothered to order and serve coconut water to his staff during the hot Indian summers.
It wasn’t the fact that they were getting something refreshing … just the fact that the boss took time out to actually deal with what they faced on the shop floor.
Those same techniques help in the IT world too.}
Vinit,
I 100% agree with this approach because in the end we are working together, and are a team. people appreciate the human touch, not the robotic way to deal with the whole situation.
I think the biggest issue is how do you keep maintaining the personal touch when the company grows up.}
Om,
It is difficult because there are more people to talk to, listen to and work with … however, as a bigger company, there are more resources available to understand the employees’ problems too}
Great points above. Personalizing business is a powerful principle (often overlooked) for businesses at all stages of growth, and I agree that it becomes more challenging in more mature businesses. A couple of thoughts . . . The challenges that come with growth put an even greater premium on developing the right practices and laying the right ‘tracks’ while the business is still small and the clay is still moist. Most managerial dysfunctions originate not because of growth per se, but from ineffective seed-stage habits that increase in scale and impact over time.
Each early stage conversation (or non-conversation) sets a tone for what the future company will look and feel like. An example comes to mind where a founder was confiding in me (an advisor) of concerns about her CFO not pulling his weight, but she was not having the tough conversations necessary to confront him on his contribution. She was avoiding the awkward conversations (the ones she most needed to have) and like any founder she could lift a hundred ‘priority’ tasks in front of this uncomfortable one. Extend this pattern over time and you end up with a 200-person firm where you get the real ‘skinny’ through the grapevine and in backrooms but not in meetings, which have evolved into dilbertesque charades. Nobody plans it this way. It’s the natural extension of thousands of smaller choices to engage or to not engage people on the things that matter. On the positive side, the simple ways of connecting with employees and partners that work in small firms will take on even more power in larger firms as long as they are consistently practiced and evaluated for impact.
It does take time — lots of it — and I guess with growth there are more opportunities for mgmt. teams to invest less time in creating emotional alignment and more time to the crises du jour that stream and scream toward the business.
I have seen one leader in particular maintain, even strengthen, a culture of emotional attachment and alignment among employees (in a business that grew from a blank sheet of paper to a 600 person business in 4 years). His solutions were (1) investing his personal time in these efforts. He “bucketed” his calendar into 4 basic activities, one of which was communicating, developing people, building the culture, etc., and he spent a good 25-30 percent of his time on these activities in a disciplined way. He was able to invest at this level only because of the high level of talent he brought onto his management team — they ran most aspects of the day-to-day biz allowing him to focus on people, talent, strategy, markets, etc. (2) the business also cultivated important rituals to build and feed emotional attachment. The business paid for professionally photagraphed portraits of all headquarters employees’ children and loved ones. In addition to giving copies of these to the employees, the framed portraits were all hung together along a prominent hallway in the headquarters building. This became a touchstone of the culture and added a lot of perspective a depth to interactions in the building. That may sound like a corny example (it was one of set of consistent practices), but you could see the fire in the eyes of people who worked at this firm — just as you can see the vacant eyes of so many people who show up and go through the motions in too many workplaces.
I didn’t intend for this to be so long… hope it adds value to the discussion.}
good post,
in starting metroproper.com the main thing i told my lawyer was to make sure i can’t get kicked out.
and i also don’t take peoples money in any of my businesses (coffee shops / music venues) unless they really really get that i do and why i do it and why i will do it with or without them cause it would sufficate me if i was taken off my flow. I’d rather start a new project:)
my projects are very personal, everyone takes care of each other and leaves each other alone as long as they are doing their job and if vibes are off somethings gotta change fast. The quality of life is the most important, happy people better company period(.)}
There’s no question getting kicked out of one’s own company is an entrepreneur’s worst nightmare. Particularly when you’re a small start up; you essentially ARE your company, living and breathing it 24/7 until it either takes off, is sold off, or ultimately fails.
I think this post speaks to the parallel marketing advice of, “be a part of the culture you’ve created.” It’s just plain good business sense to be involved with your own community, whether you’re talking customers or co-workers, rather than serving as a benevolent (but out-of-touch) “dictator from on high.”}
Really good article, and lots of interesting comments. If there are multiple founders, their relationship is so critical, and I don’t think it can ever recover from bad gut feelings or doubts in the early stages. They also need to present a united front to employees. The worst scenario is to have the company divide into camps associated with each founder, thereby fracturing the entire organization.
Co-founders can disagree as much as they like in private, but should present one coherent direction for the business to their staff.
I worked with my current business partner for about a year before we started our new venture, and that allowed us to understand each other’s was of communicating and get to the point where we can have major disagreements but resolve them and move forward.}