The Growth Moments
As you grow your startup, you will be confronted with moments that require fast decisions. Self-aware moments where surprise catches you off-guard, and you have to think instantaneously about what is good for the company.
I think of these moments as growth moments. The times when something happens to invite us to hold on to the way things have been or to make a critical choice. The challenge is allowing ourselves to step up and into the next stage or make an important choice that sets a future direction for the startup. These moments are different from the things we foresee and prepare for, which, of course, we are doing all the time. The only preparation I have found for my growth moments is just becoming ever clearer on my values and goals so that when the growth moment presents itself, I have that framework to draw on. Perhaps a few real-life examples would illustrate what I am talking about and provide some ideas about how to tackle your own unique growth moments. All of these are true stories of some of my growth moments, with some identifying details adjusted to illustrate what I am talking about.
To control or to delegate – should I really continue to be involved in such decisions?
Our startup was growing fast. The executive team was expanding. A new VP of Manufacturing joined the team and started integrating. Shortly after he arrived, during one of our leadership team meetings, he announced that he and our Chief Commercial Officer had set up a weekly meeting time to synchronize our production schedules with our sales pipeline. A sense of surprise – no shock – settled in as I absorbed the implications of that simple, sensible plan. Up until that point, I had personally managed the alignment of sales with production. I had worksheets. Reports. Data. A method. It had been working smoothly. And this change would obviate the process that I was comfortable with and require me to release my control of these important weekly balancing decisions. No one had asked my opinion or mentioned that a new process might be instituted. The new process comment was just conversationally shared as a status update.
I remember freezing in my mind as it dawned on me that my startup and team were growing past me. And I was faced with a choice. I could choose to grab back control or to release it. In a moment, I flashed through the implications. Grabbing back control would throttle our growth by making me a potential bottleneck in our expanding processes and systems. What was the right next step for a maturing startup? And, in a flash, I knew. Empower the functional leaders to systematize and take me out of the process. I said nothing. I nodded and moved on to the next agenda item. The new VP of Manufacturing never realized the internal earthquake he had caused in me as he went about doing the right thing for growing the company.
That was not the only time I had to make conscious choices to give up responsibilities that I held at different stages of my startups. Every startup founder/CEO who grows a company must first establish and then give away essential processes; if they don’t, they will throttle their company’s progress. Over time, it has become easier for me to recognize the growth moments, lean into them, and let go more readily as we build our way forward.
To set a policy that applies to all – are we virtual or aren’t we?
Our startup had established the systems, processes, and culture to be virtual. It was a stretch for a person like me who valued interpersonal interactions – and I had to be gradually convinced that we could be a successful and integrated team even if we were not all in the same place. Once that pattern was established, we needed to grow our team substantially. Since we were already virtual, we opted to expand our pool of potential candidates for the new roles nationally by not requiring that new team members move. The result was that we found some extraordinary individuals with exceptional talents all over the country to join our team. It was exciting to have them join us, and not having to go through all the turmoil of relocating meant they got up to speed and started contributing much faster. I was glad that I had become comfortable with an entirely virtual team.
Then the unexpected growth and integrity moment came when that commitment was tested. One of my co-founders said he wanted to talk to me. He shared that he and his family wanted to relocate away from our headquarters to a different state. My first reaction was emotional. I did not want him to go. It was an unexpected change. What would it mean? My second reaction was logical. I had just hired a bunch of new team members across the country. How could I not allow a team member to relocate to another place? Where would consistency and integrity be in saying he could not move because he was already on the team? All of that flashed through my mind as I considered where the policy must land if we were to treat our team members consistently and fairly. I took a breath and shared my enthusiasm and excitement for the dream my co-founder was pursuing, and we started talking about tactical details. A few months later, it happened again as another co-founder opted to move to support his family’s job opportunity. The second time was easy because the first time established the policy. Now everyone knew what it meant to be a fully virtual team and take advantage of the geographical flexibility that gave us.
To make the call that sets the company’s character – Where is the path of integrity?
We built products, tested them for quality control, and shipped them. The pressure to hit our revenue forecasts was immense, with our Board of Directors and investors monitoring every month’s performance. We were close. It was the last day of the month, and we needed to ship three more to hit our forecast. A forecast that I was accountable for. It would be so much easier just to hit the numbers, and no one would ask questions if the numbers were as expected.
But there was a problem. Those last three we had were not meeting our specifications yet. The quality tests were not passing. The head of the manufacturing team came to my office and asked me to come and make the call. We could ship the out-of-spec products to our international distribution subsidiary, recognize the revenue, hit our numbers, and repair the products before sending them to customers. Alternatively, we could keep working on them until they passed the quality tests and then ship them in the following month.
I remember walking into manufacturing and seeing many team members watching me as the situation was spelled out. I remember thinking for a moment that there was really no harm to the customers from the ship them now path. We would solve the quality problems before it would ever touch them. But then, I looked around the room at the dozens of team members who knew the stakes and the financial performance implications of the choice, and I realized this was not a choice without consequences. Were we going to be a company of integrity or compromise? If I compromised on quality in that pressure-filled moment, why wouldn’t others feel like they should sometimes make compromises, too? Could we? Yes. But should we? No. In a split second, I knew that compromising my and our integrity would start us down a destructive path even if no one outside the team ever knew about that choice. I decided and told the team to call it a day and tomorrow to keep working on getting those products into spec before shipping. I saw the release of held breaths and the sighs of relief ripple around the room. It was my call—one of my integrity moments. And I could have lost the team by making a different choice. Was it ever really an option? Probably not, but the temptation was there and needed to be resisted. And that resisting set the tone and character of the company.
These are examples of the many moments that have defined the growth of my startups and myself as a startup leader. Over the years, I have gotten better at recognizing them and responding to them in ways that support each startup’s development in whatever direction. As a leader, I think developing the capacity to respond effectively to these moments is essential. To fail is to stifle growth and opportunity. Suppose I reach the point where I cannot walk with integrity and enable the necessary organizational growth. In that case, it is incumbent on me to ensure the company has the right resources to fulfill its potential.
