Here is something that made us stop and think this week:
I constantly listen to podcasts. One of my favorites is How I Built This with Guy Raz. He brings on Founders and creators to discuss their experiences and share their stories. One topic that comes up in virtually every episode is leadership. What does it take to start, build, and grow a company? A lot of things. But leadership is an essential ingredient. I might have heard this definition of leadership from Guy Raz; I don’t remember. But this is the definition of leadership that has resonated most with me. A leader must 1) set expectations, 2) make sure people have the resources they need to meet those expectations, and 3) hold them and yourself accountable for meeting those expectations.
Selling your business can be an incredibly difficult decision. It’s important to talk to the new owner about their leadership style in order to help weigh how your decision will affect employees and other stakeholders. To that end, we will take a few moments to dive into each component of our leadership philosophy.
To set expectations, I’ve learned that you must communicate upfront, often, and clearly. I am a big fan of the OKR Framework popularized by Google as a tool to help with this sort of communication. A small handful of objectives are established for the entire company then broken down into team and individual objectives. At each level, there are measurable key results. The system is intended to ensure that there is visibility and alignment for everyone in the company. When done well, each person in the company knows how their day should be prioritized and how their individual efforts contribute to the collective success of the broader organization.
In making sure people have the resources required to meet an expectation, it is too easy to focus on whether there is sufficient budget and headcount. In larger organizations, this might be all that is required to get a job done. But in small, rapidly-scaling companies, I’ve found that another very important question to consider is whether people have sufficient task-relevant maturity. Andy Grove, the legendary Intel CEO, wrote about task-relevant maturity in High Output Management, one of the business books I refer back to most often. At this stage of a company’s life, you often attract very smart, ambitious, generalists who want to wear multiple hats. That’s great! That’s usually what the company needs at this stage. However, these incredibly smart generalists will often need extra time from the leader at the start of each new project to understand the context and build an appropriate project plan. So when setting expectations and considering whether someone has the resources to meet them, don’t overlook the most important resource: your personal time.
The last component of my definition of leadership is accountability. Usually, the hardest part of this step is actually doing it. Setting aside time to measure and follow up on prior goals can be pushed aside because there is always a new goal to accomplish and a new hill to climb. However, to state the obvious, it’s critical. I’ve found that putting calendar invites down during the expectation setting process can help make sure this step doesn’t get overlooked.
Guy, if you’re reading this, thanks for the great podcast! And if you’re someone who is considering selling your business, please reach out to start a conversation.
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