Stop hiring people to do YOUR job!
When I started my first company, “Blue Diesel”:http://bluediesel.com/, we were a Web development company at the dawn of the Internet age. (Remember 1994?) Not only was the company young, so was I– just 19. As the Internet matured, so did our Blue Diesel, from a scrappy kid in a college dorm room to a company that was banging out code to over 100 professionals at companies such as “Best Buy”:http://www.bestbuy.com/, “BMW”:http://www.bmw.com/, and “Chase Bank”:http://www.jpmorganchase.com/cm/cs?pagename=Chase/Href&urlname=jpmc/about.
*Along the way I learned a painful lesson as a founder.*
Being so young, I assumed the path to success would need to be paved with a long line of executive managers brought in from the outside to improve upon the work I’d done on my own. Over time we brought in the “best and the brightest” to do design work, outside sales, client management, marketing strategy, and, of course, technological development. Such seasoned professionals would have to have more experience, more talent, and more capacity than a 20-something kid possibly could offer, right?
I was wrong. In the end I relied too heavily on these people to do what was inherently my job – leading the company.
Let me pause to say that the growth of any great company is not a single-person effort. It’s the work of many great people who propel the company forward. There are, however, aspects of the business that no one can do quite as well as the founder can.
*Leadership*
I never got this one right. In my eight-year tenure at Blue Diesel we went through four presidents in an effort to disconnect myself from the day-to-day operations. Every time this failed.
It wasn’t because we hired the wrong people – they were all good candidates. The strategy failed because we ignored the reason why my leadership worked where others could not. *My leadership worked better simply because I cared more about the company than anyone from the outside possibly could.* I couldn’t replace that qualification no matter whom I hired.
Leading the company was my job, and I made the continual mistake of trying to force someone else to perform a role cut out for only one person, me. This isn’t the case for every company, but if you look at a company like Apple, before and after Steve Jobs, you can see why at point, a founder is irreplaceable.
*Sales*
We also hired more than a dozen salespeople to find new business and reel in the big fish. Time after time we were disappointed with the results of our hires. Again this was not because we hired the wrong people, but because *they couldn’t sell with the passion of a founder.*
In the process I probably slowed my company’s growth down by about two years, hoping like hell someone else would be able to hop on a plane every week and bring home more deals. I was wrong. I’m not the world’s greatest salesperson, but *in the end, no one else could sell my vision like I could.*
*Product Development*
I lump product development into a general category to mean every other working aspect of our business, from our technological innovation to the creative output of our design.
I ran out and hired creative directors, technology directors, directors of client services, and the like. They were all smart, talented, and motivated professionals. The technologists wanted to build cutting edge technology. The creatives wanted to craft award-winning design. Client services wanted to cultivate overjoyed customers. But *none of them cared as much I did about how all of those elements, together, would produce an amazing interactive design agency.*
What I learned is that the complete evolution of your product is something so close to your vision as the founder that it’s nearly impossible to divide and distribute among a team of people—no matter how talented they are. *Someone has to pull all of those elements into one cohesive vision.* At least at Blue Diesel, that someone had to be me.
*’I’ at the Center, if not Alone*
The point here is that in my haste to divide my vision and responsibility among many people I ended up diluting my responsibility to all of them. A founder’s job is to convert his/her vision into a working organization that is capable of realizing that vision.
*When you take the founder out of the equation, the formula breaks.*
These days I work differently. I stay very engaged in every aspect of the business, not because I can’t figure out a better way to spend 80 hours per week, but because I know it’s my job to pull all of those pieces together.
If you’re growing your own startup, by all means look for great people. Just don’t lose sight of your true responsibility within the organization to knit it all together and keep the vision alive. *_It’s not an outsourceable job!_*
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Hmmm, I don’t know if I get your point. At first you state that no employee can replace a founder when it comes to a (cohesive) vision. Later you seem to recognize that hiring people is a necessity if you want your company to grow.
I agree with your conclusion — that you should build your organization carefully because rushing may destroy it. I just don’t see how “build carefully” can imply not hiring salespeople, designers and technologists, which seems to be your advice in your first paragraphs.}
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I think that wil stated that no matter who you hire for your startup, the founder always play an important role [By having the vision and by glueing all the parts and people together].
Think of a founder as the mother of a baby, you can hire a very professional babysitter with plenty of experience, her mother will always know [by instinct] whats best for her baby and [emotionally] do a better job than the babysitter.
I don’t always think its true, and i dont think that a founder always need to be the CEO of the company, sometimes you need someone who has enough experience and connection to take your business to the next level and having a professional CEO doing that while you’re in the backstage supporting him and supporting the employees might be the best thing to do.
I do think that the founder need to stay at the company for a long time. he knows its business better than anyone else. He also give always a morale boost to the employees [if the founder is still around that means he has faith in the idea, if he leaves to found another idea, that can impact the company aswell].}
@ Tim – I wanted to point out that while hiring the next round of management is a necessary step, you need to be careful about leaving the critical role of vision, and to some degree “heart” (for lack of a much better term) with the Founder.
Of course there are cases where the Founder has left and the next round of management proceeded wonderfully. Jack Welch comes to mind in that capacity.
But what we’re talking about are startup companies here, so in the formative stages the Founder is much more likely to be connected with the company at a deeper level, which frankly, I took for granted.
@ Adam – I wish I had thought of your babysitter analogy when writing the piece. Thank you!}
I do think that non-business CEO’s often are susceptible to doubting their abilities and focus on what they lack. While you may not be able to crunch numbers, often you have unique insight into the customers, the market and the product. Self-doubt can lead to poor choices, and a MBA does not an executive make.}
Really interesting article. My experience has been that it’s too many senior outside hires that causes problems. Many young companies seem to be become top heavy very fast, when what they really need is focus from the founders on creating a fantastic team of line-level staff to execute on the vision.}
Good article, I can read the attitude is lot bold ‘I’ statements,
I dont think the founder need to be there ( ex: cisco ) for a company to grow. On the other side Apple and Microsoft are other examples.}
@ Unnikrishnan – we’re not talking about the Founder of publicly held companies. We’re talking about the Founder in a startup. Much different point of evolution!}
Excellent article.
One of the reasons so many first-time entrepreneurs try to “outsource” too much too early is that they simply lack the confidence in their own abilities.
As you pointed out, more often than not, passion trumps experience and skills.}
Hi Wil:
You have presented the real management phenomenon. I have few observations:
1. Employee loyalty is never 100%
2. Culture of engaging employees in management and handling the issues independently should be started at the very first stage of your startup. As it go farther, you can not change so easily.
3. If you are in loyalty trap of employees, either you reengineer the organization process workflow or layoff the unloyal employees as soon as possible.
4. Trust the employees but keey yourself in loop as well.
Rajesh Shakya
http://www.rajeshshakya.com
Helping Technopreneurs to excel and lead their life!}