From Founder to CEO - A Case Study

“John* is building an AI construction startup, that’s growing rapidly and impressively. He’s looking to level up his personal skills and build a long-term culture for the company” read the email introduction from a venture capital colleague in March of 2018.
We set up a Zoom call (yes, we were zooming back then) a few weeks later. I started John off with a tool called the Wheel of Life. It asks you to rate your life in eight areas: career, family & friends, significant others/romance, fun and recreation, health, money, personal growth, physical environment, and career. When you’re in the discovery phase with a client, this is a good way to understand an individual’s level of fulfillment. It’s a quick way to have a deep conversation with someone.
Like most CEO/Founders, John’s life was wildly out of balance. Traveling all over the world to fundraise and find customers overpowered any restorative impact his exercise routine could provide.
Relationships at work were strained to say the least. Every time we talked, there seemed to be someone on the team that was a flight risk or not living up to John’s high standards.
In the next phase, we put a stakeholder interview process in motion. I interviewed direct reports and board members and focused on uncovering John’s signature strengths as well as finding areas where he could be even more effective.
Passion, Empathy, and Intelligence rose to the top.
The areas for improvement included: erratic communication, diving too deep into the tactical, avoiding conflict, showing up late for meetings, and not being present when he did show up.
John took to the feedback. He announced the findings to the team, and we went to work on developing new behavior patterns. When I did another 360 after 6 months, I found that a couple of the senior executives refused to talk to me.
"Nothing has changed. So, why bother?"
I arranged an offsite meeting with John.
“Do you want to be a CEO or just the Founder?” I asked.
That struck him and he proceeded to make incremental and dramatic changes. Along the way, I helped him meet the organizational challenges of rapid growth as he went through his series A and now a successful series B.
Recently, I was happy to give John wonderful news. The team clearly saw a changed person who was stepping into the role of CEO.
He trusts the team. They feel his support. There is a calmer version of him coming through. He’s elevated the talent on his team.
At one moment during one of our sessions, John said “You saved the company.”
No, John, you did.
If you are finding yourself in a similar situation as John and would like support navigating the challenges that come with scaling your organization, feel free to connect with me HERE.
David
*Name changed for privacy purposes.