by: Noam Wasserman for Forbes.com
Many founders ride their companies up the value ladder, and then down it. Last week saw the latest example of this phenomenon, as the next dramatic chapter was written in the evolution of Research-in-Motion (RIM), the once world-beating maker of the Blackberry smartphone. Once again, a founder overstayed his welcome and paid a price.
A founder’s early passion, confidence, and attachment to a vision are often the magical ingredients that fuel the launch of a startup rocket ship. Visionary founders are usually the most central, irreplaceable players in a startup. Seen as the guardians of the corporate culture and the ones with deep ties to early employees and customers, such founders enjoy being the generals leading the troops.
However, these early strengths can become Achilles’ heels if a founder is not aware of the downsides of passion and attachment. The downsides include things that the founder can’t do and things that the founder won’t do. On the “can’t” side, founders fail to realize that success breeds a new class of challenges; challenges that require skills they do not have, such as scaling a larger organization or managing functions in which they haven’t worked. On the “won’t” side, they stick with their initial ideas for too long, ignoring clear signals that it is time to pivot. They stick with their early employees and executives, even when those people are not up to the new challenges and demands. To Read More