Cultivating Your Community of Champions

As a startup founder-CEO, do not go it alone. Cultivate a community of champions who have your back and are willing to support your growth as you seek to deliver innovation and transformation.

My friend, Daphne Jones, took the stage recently and inspired an entire room full of healthcare leaders with her incredible wisdom (her book is Win When They Say You Won’t – and that is certainly a sentiment I have felt when the naysayers start jabbering at me.) One of her (many) compelling points was that, as we move through different stages of life and build our journey, we must regularly assess who we have around us – and sometimes, we will need to make new friends. Friends who will be in our corner, who want us to win, who will encourage us, and who will use their own experience of winning to help us level up our game as we tackle new mountains of opportunity.

Recently, I have developed a much deeper appreciation for the uplifting power of supportive professional friends. Let me be clear about what I am talking about here. As a startup CEO, even when we build good collaborative working relationships with our startup co-founders and team, it is an illusion that the smart, capable people you pay are your friends. They aren’t. When you are the boss, you will find your peers, your mentors, and your support outside your company. These professional friends are independent sounding boards, reflectors that have your back, wise peers who can challenge your thinking, and patient, supportive listeners that will help process your angst even as they provide deep wisdom and sometimes reframing insight. 

Reflecting over my past twenty-plus years building startups, I can see that I always made space for and invested in supportive professional friends – and today, I am finding an abundance of new friends which is so energizing! I have vivid memories of their faces – and the critical conversations we had along the way. These professional friends are people who had no direct connection to my startups. They were not in my day-to-day. But they did have the background, experience, and willingness to share an independent perspective when I was stuck, unsure, in a rut, or the stakes were high. The best of these relationships were mutually supportive and safe spaces as we processed through many things together, such as:

• When we had become boiled frogs in the face of an underperforming or disruptive team member – and needed a peer to challenge why we were tolerating that destructive situation
• Whether it was wise to sue in some circumstances – or whether there is a better approach to achieving our objectives
• How to deal with unexpected, disruptive, and highly inconvenient health challenges – with the insights and perspective of those who have also had to walk such paths
• What to do when Board members or investors start behaving badly – especially the insights that help us recognize that is actually what is happening and that we are not wrong to take a stand
• Wrestling with whether to fire a co-founder
• Sorting through high-stakes strategic decisions – they bring another set of lived experiences and perspectives to bear
• Reflective feedback that affirms our strengths and value – and sometimes helps us see new ways to grow and be more effective
• Exploring new opportunities full of unknowns and possibilities

During seasons like now, when I am embarking on new directions, I find that continuing to invest in both old and new professional friends is inspiring, strengthening, and empowering. We seek ways to generously help one another as we take the time to connect and get to know each other as peers. They are or have been executives themselves. They know the challenging contours and trade-offs of making hard decisions. They know the pain of betrayal and hardball.  They can empathize and provide perspective. It is a mutual choice to connect. We can help each other by becoming friends who will make the effort to know one another, to have each other’s back, not to stab, but to support, encourage, and help. Such friends will love and support you through a dark valley rather than abandon you to it – and will encourage, sponsor, and cheer you on as you tackle your next mountain. 

As I invest the time to find and cultivate such professional friend relationships, I have noted a few things that help create a virtuous and generous cycle of mutual investment:

• Look for those who are at least peers – other CEOs, other executive leaders – and who share a desire to be mutually supportive. Be selective. Look for maturity.
• Seek and integrate advice. Can I run something by you?
• Be coachable.
• Be direct and clear yet positive and constructive when you offer a point of view.
• Reciprocate. Answer the call when a professional friend reaches out.
• Create a safe, supportive space. Listen. Care. Lift up.
• Challenge assumptions. Note blind spots. Help create clarity.
• Give generously what wisdom and insight you can, even if the message is challenging. 

Today, my goal was to share how excited I am so that perhaps you may be inspired to cultivate such relationships in your life. Recently I have discovered that a whole new level of support was available and possible. What a glorious and unexpected delight! Humility and vulnerability are certainly required, but my unexpected new friends in this life season are building me up and pushing me to explore new possibilities I had not considered. They bring different perspectives that are opening my eyes to reinterpret some of my past experiences. They offer maturity and support rather than being undermining and destructive. They can see, affirm and appreciate my strengths while helping me grow and expand beyond my blind spots. They are helping me make better decisions and discover new avenues to learn and grow. They are encouraging me to discover new purpose and explore new paths to expand my legacy and return more to my community. Enrich your life and expand your impact as you support others with aligned characters and values. The power of positivity and generosity is incredible!