By Sondra Calhoun
Your company, based on your incredible vision, took off and was growing faster than you ever imagined it would. Before long you had to bring more people on to get the work done. The market was so excited about what you were doing and providing, that it was screaming for more. But now you find your company’s growth stalling out. You’re scrambling to find what will accelerate it again. You keep thinking and maybe even saying things like ..
“Why do I seem to be the only one who can make a decision?
“Why isn’t everyone as committed to the company as I am? What happened to hard work and sacrifice?”
“Am I the only one putting in well over 60 hours a week?”
“Our turnover of employees seems to be getting worse.”
“If we just throw more money into marketing, hire better people, create new positions, or people would get more serious about selling, things would take off again.”
“Where is the sense of urgency?”
The truth of the matter is that you are most likely experiencing Founder’s Trap. It’s a term that describes the challenges of moving from startup to an established company. Dr. Ichak Adizes coined the term after his extensive research into the lifecycles of corporations. It results from the company growing to the point where one or two people are not capable of making all of the decisions, delegating all of the work, pivoting over and over again at the drop of a hat, and quite frankly rallying the troops to just suck it up and bleed and sweat a little more. It is a very painful season for the founder(s), the employees, the clients/customers, and quite frankly all stakeholders. If you really want to grow to the next level, you must first be honest with yourself as to whether you are willing to do what it takes.
You must be willing to learn some new and critical leadership competencies yourself, while investing in the development of those you need to lead beside you. It looks like not only delegating responsibilities but also delegating authority and ownership. That means building strong trust and being okay with things not necessarily being done the way you would do it. Others need to be brought into the vision planning for the next growth season. Focused initiatives must be agreed upon, aligned across the organization, and executed diligently. Investing in your people so they become better leaders pays off tenfold, but you have to be willing to let them fully lead their teams. No more working around them to handle employee issues, overruling their decisions with their direct reports, pulling their people into your plans, or dictating who they should hire and fire. If you really want them to lead, you must let them lead.
Founder’s Trap does not have to be a trap after all. Once you decide that you really want to take your baby to the next level of growth and are willing to grow with it, renewed energy and success are just around the corner.