“Successful entrepreneurial (Go Go) companies are needed more by those who work in them than by the founders.”

There are two key moments in the development of every company. The first is the conception of the company, its birth, the moment when ideas and dreams begin life. I use the word company pretentiously because as yet it is just a new born baby which has come into the world in some “garage” from an embryo conceived in someone’s head or several people’s heads. And every single company without exception has been in that “garage”, some for a shorter duration, some longer. Some of them hundreds of years ago and some have just been born. We will talk on some other occasion about what happens to them there and what determines whether they will either quickly finish their life there, or finish it in a completely different place, in a luxury marble edifice or somewhere in between (where things are not too bad). This time let’s talk about the second birth of the company.

According to Adizes approach to the company life cycle this is called leaving the Go Go stage. You will recall that the Go Go stage is the stage at the beginning which is characterized by self-confidence, much energy, enthusiasm, and a readiness to face up to new challenges. It is a company that believes that not only can it sell all its existing products and many, many future ones to everyone all over the world, but also actually tries to achieve that. To paraphrase: “From the cradle to the grave the best time is the Go Go time.” But immediately after that comes “Blessed is he who is able to understand the Go Go time.” As a result of vaguely defined areas of responsibility and lack of cost control, problems increasingly come to the surface. Problems arise in mutual communication. And there is more and more a sense of what is justifiably called the Founders' Trap1.

The one who started it all keeps wondering more and more who owns whom. Does he own the company or does the company own him? I am not talking about money. He has money but he can’t spend it even if he has built the most magnificent house and the most expensive car. Because he just doesn’t have the time. He works very hard. He had to do a large part of the work himself when he started his company, and he still does even though he has ten times or a hundred times more people about him than he had at the beginning. He takes the decisions, and not only the key ones, just because he likes to be consulted, and in not a few cases because they like to consult him. The books say he should delegate. In a few of them, it says what he already knows well, and that is that this is the moment when he loses control. Before him is the door he needs to open to stride forth into immortality and ensure that the company continues its life even when he is no longer around. But maybe it is even more important that he delay that moment, his departure from this world, as long as possible. At a superficial level the key is in his own hands. Or more precisely, he has one of the first keys and if he does not make up his mind to set out on the path we call “from Go Go through Adolescence to Prime”, every word that follows is pointless. The founder (or founders) must decide whether the company will be born again. Will it really become a serious company (as the surrounding environment views it even now, albeit only on the basis of results which are still the fruit of his "genius") with a clear mission, policies, areas of responsibility, authority levels, a reward system? One key is in his hands and he has the right to decide whether he will put it in the lock. He is quite within his rights not to do it ever. But in the knowledge that this child of his, as opposed to his biological children, will not outlive him by much. He will have behaved like a possessive mother who has made a little creep who can't take care of himself.

And if he sticks the key in and tries to unlock the door… there is another lock. The second key is in the hands of his closest business associates. More often than not these are people he met in the “garage”, people who understood him when nobody else did, and who dreamed his dreams. He simply loves them, they were with him when the going was toughest, they slept together in their cars on the first business trips. He has spent more time with them in the last ten years than he has with himself. The pioneers. They have been best men at each other’s weddings and god-fathers to each other’s children. But today this is no longer the company where they shared their sandwiches, now each one of them lunches on his own in luxury restaurants, riding in luxury cars, wearing luxury suits.

How do these pioneers behave?

First of all they catch the “He’ll get over it” syndrome. He’s always turned up on Monday mornings with a new idea, new ways of working and new sales territories. They never achieved even half of that because either they never had time, or he came up with another “pet idea” in the meantime. So he’ll get over this idea too - that they need to have meetings all day long and discuss all manner of plans, submit reports, analyse the market place. To talk about some strange word beginning with "p" - not “product placement” but “profit”. One of them has already been asked several times by his wife whether they are all insane when they spend so much time talking and never agree on anything. Or rather they agree to implement what they agreed on at the last meeting. They agree to agree on an agreement.

This new birth is also painful. It’s not a simple process. They usually start off by going against the agreement they have made. The worst thing is that such a reorganisation is usually accompanied by a fall in sales which stresses them out even more. Because we have turned inwards, and are focusing on ourselves, we’ve got less energy to fight for market share. The logical conclusion is “If we had done this from the beginning we would never have got ourselves in the position we are in.” Which is perfectly true. If they had worked like this from the beginning they wouldn’t have got anywhere. And if they continue in this way, it will result in nothing.

So sometimes the top man backs off. But only for a while. He addresses the issue again and introduces new people into what is more and more beginning to look like top management. But this stresses the “pioneers’ even more.

They fail to realize that they need the company more than it need needs them. The solution to all the problems might be to sell up. Or to choose what to sell and what not – and to amuse himself with one small part and to collect the rent from the property. Or... Well, he’s already got enough for himself and his children in the bank, in shares, or under the mattress. So that his children can be happy and get to know their father again. And to get to know his wife, his father and mother again. And his friends. And to travel and … Successful entrepreneurial companies are needed more by those who work in them than by the founders.

But I have good news for all employees. The large majority of founders won’t ever do this. Why? Because they are not rational people, because if they were they would never have started up the company in the first place. And because they would see this as a defeat, and they don’t like losing.

Is there a happy ending to this story? In order to avoid the trap of having to explain what I mean when I say happy, I will use the word "just”. For the one who put the most into it over the years. He has first choice. Sooner or later he will choose the right path. Whoever wants to go with him is welcome, if not…

And that is just.

Boris Vukic, Senior Associate, Adizes SEE