Having the right team in place is everything. Whether getting a startup off the ground and thriving, or safeguarding an established company, the right — or wrong — people can mean the difference between a successful venture and a failed dream.
Let’s review some of the major challenges that come up for businesses due to who’s in charge, who’s in conflict and who’s in over their heads.
Giving your team responsibility and authority to make decisions and execute will empower and motivate them, and ultimately make you a more effective leader.
Founder’s Syndrome
Think you can do everything yourself? You’re not alone. That particular tendency is so common among founders that it has a name: “founder’s syndrome.” I last wrote about it in the June 2020 issue of XBIZ World. The TLDR version: founder’s syndrome centralizes all decision-making so that nearly everything flows through the founder. Unfortunately, this can result in a variety of problems, including inflexibility, being slow to adapt and developing a company culture that is personality-based rather than mission-focused.
If that sounds familiar, remember that the only way to get comfortable with letting go of tasks is through practice: Try it; you’ll like it. Giving your team responsibility and authority to make decisions and execute will empower and motivate them, and ultimately make you a more effective leader.
Sometimes, a founder who has trouble delegating may need to consider hiring a CEO to take over. CEOs are needed when a company grows beyond its founder. The person who took the company to its first million is often not the person who can take it to $10 million or $100 million. When you see a founder step aside, it means they are aware of their own skills and limitations. It should be seen as a sign of strength rather than failure or weakness. After all, who wouldn’t want to spend their time having fun and leave running the company to an expert?
Irreconcilable Differences
Some data suggests that companies with multiple partners or co-founders have a significantly higher chance of success. However, the “too many cooks” problem can also lead to trouble between strong-willed entrepreneurs even when they are technically on the same team. Personality conflicts, struggles over leadership and clashes over areas of responsibility are typical, and often lead to the exit of one founder or the sale of the business.
In fact, on more than one occasion, I have advised a founder to sell their business in order to escape ongoing problems with their co-founder. No partnership, business or personal, can survive if the partners want different things. Business is like love: Sometimes it doesn’t work out, and you have to get a divorce.
Several years ago, I invested in a niche eCommerce company. The business was founded by two friends, but over the years, a deep rift developed between them. One founder was a dedicated workhorse, while the other had their head in the clouds and spent too much time imagining what color to paint their future private jet. It isn’t uncommon for one founder to be more effective or dedicated, while the other fails to contribute equally or burns out.
Unfortunately, most people don’t recognize such imbalances until their venture is already well underway. The best way to avoid these issues is to handle them long before they flare up, while everyone is still getting along a partnership agreement should be in place for any business you get involved with — especially if you are a minority partner. Such an agreement should specify how disagreements or voting will be handled, how a partner will exit in the event of unreconcilable differences, or how the partnership will be dissolved should that become necessary.
The Peter Principle
Part of assembling the right team is knowing how to spot, hire and nurture talent — but sometimes even a good management and promotion strategy can backfire. That’s because the most senior, experienced or brightest team member may not always be the best choice for a particular promotion, job or assignment.
This may sound counter-intuitive, but the Peter Principle states that if someone is good at their job, they are likely to get promoted until they eventually end up in a position where they become bad at their job. Here’s an example: My top sales rep is excellent at what they do. Why would I want to take a top performer and promote them to management, where they can’t perform the task they’re so great at? Instead, ensure the people you are promoting have the skills, experience, and knowledge to fulfill the position successfully. If nobody inside your company is qualified, hire someone from outside.
When hiring, commonly suggested tips include: Find others who believe in your goals. Hire slowly and fire quickly. Hire people who are smarter than you. Balance your weaknesses with other people’s strengths. If it turns out the problem is you, only self-awareness and prioritizing the future of the business over personal pride will solve the crisis.
Either way, the important thing is to prepare for these problems as best you can before they happen, or else work quickly to resolve them when they are developing, so that your business will have the best possible chance to survive and thrive.
Juicy Jay is the CEO and founder of the JuicyAds advertising network and the Broker.xxx dealmaking platform, which helps people buy and sell adult websites, businesses and domains.
