Resources
Essays for founder-CEOs of growth-stage companies, drawn from work inside their leadership teams. Each one names a pattern that holds growing companies back, from leadership teams that avoid conflict to exits that leave value on the table, and lays out what to do about it. Most end with questions to take into your next leadership meeting.
Most leadership teams can name an owner for the top of their business flywheel. Further around the wheel, steps go unowned and momentum leaks out. How to find your orphan steps and give each one an accountable owner.
Stalled growth tempts founder-CEOs to add salespeople and marketing spend. When the broken step sits two steps down the business flywheel, that push makes things worse. How to find the wobble and fix it first.
A personal story of spinal fusion recovery and the excuse it created. How a partly true complaint can hide a story, a payoff, and a real cost, and why the most justified complaints deserve the closest look.
Most leadership teams have built strategic thinking. Few have built strategic action, the ability to make good calls together while the market moves. Where the gap shows up and how to close it.
Most leadership scorecards carry responsibilities that are never really measured. A four-step method for turning any responsibility into a real metric, with examples across five senior roles.
Decisions stall when no one knows who owns them. The Decision Gap, and a five-stage approach to decision-making rights that gets your leadership team past making every call or delegating everything.
Leadership teams judge decisions by their outcomes, and hindsight makes that judgment worse. A matrix, an audit, and the practices that turn a bad outcome into actual learning.
A role scorecard is an operating instrument, not a document to file. The full lifecycle of a working scorecard, from before the hire through the leader's promotion out of the role.
Four common mistakes turn role scorecards from an accountability tool into paperwork. What each mistake looks like in practice, and how to audit and fix the scorecards you already have.
Most CEOs can spot clear failure or clear excellence but can't write down the line between them. The Red, Green, Wow framework for setting thresholds that make senior leader performance measurable.
Senior leader scorecards work when they hold durable, run-the-business accountabilities. They break when they turn into catch-alls for projects and special priorities. How to tell the difference.
A role scorecard with a missing section is an agreement with a missing clause. The eight sections, the ones that break most often, and a short audit for the scorecards you already have.
Job descriptions are recruiting documents. Once someone is hired, they stop helping you manage performance. Why leaders end up judged against standards that live only in the CEO's head, and what to use instead.
Founders who start an exit without a clear picture of life after the sale make worse decisions in the deal. Why the Clarity Gap forms, and how to prepare yourself before you prepare the business.
Maximizing valuation is not a plan. The Transaction Trap, and why exit preparation should start with what the exit needs to make possible for you, then build the options to get there.
Earnouts, rollovers, and employment agreements can align interests or quietly constrain you. The Second-Bite Trap, and what founders get wrong about how a deal is structured.
The first ninety days after closing are where founder regret becomes real. The Vulnerability Window, why most exit planning ignores it, and a readiness check for life after the sale.
Leadership teams chase agreement from everyone instead of clarity about who decides. How the Consensus Trap slows execution, and how clear decision rights let a team move without everyone on board.
Strong functional leaders often optimize for their own metrics instead of company outcomes. Why the Individual Hero Problem shows up, and how to build a team whose first commitment is to the leadership team.
Leadership teams assume they share values until a hard decision exposes the gaps. How to surface the values your team actually operates by, before the Assumed Alignment Trap costs you a key decision.
Polite leadership teams push real disagreement into hallways and one-on-ones with the CEO. Why artificial harmony is so costly, and how to build the productive conflict that better decisions need.
Titles and general areas of focus are not ownership. How blurry boundaries make accountability disappear on a leadership team, and how role scorecards give each leader clear outcomes to own.
When peers won't call out peers, the CEO becomes the only source of accountability. The Peer Pressure Gap, with practical ways to build a team that holds each other to its commitments.
When the founder is the engine of execution, the business can't run without them, and buyers see the risk. How the Firefighting Trap hides behind effective leadership, and what a real operating rhythm looks like.
A business that runs on undocumented knowledge looks fine from the inside and risky from the outside. Why buyers discount for the Tribal Knowledge Trap, and how to get what your people know out of their heads.
Founders keep loyal early hires in roles they have outgrown and call it the right thing to do. The real cost of the Loyalty Trap is the A-players who leave when they see it tolerated.
When everyone owns an initiative, no one does. How the Accountability Illusion lets leadership teams confuse shared involvement with shared accountability, and how single-point ownership fixes it.
Profitable companies still run out of cash, because growth consumes cash before it produces it. The Runway Blindspot, and the cash measures founders should watch alongside revenue and profit.
Most company values are wallpaper, nice to look at and ignored in practice. Why the Values Poster Problem happens, and how to discover values from your best people and best moments so they drive behavior.
If your culture only exists because you are in the room, a buyer sees risk. How the Founder's Shadow forms, why it hides behind a strong culture, and how to build one that holds up without you.
Founders know their history in detail but struggle to defend their projections. The Rearview Mirror Problem, why buyers discount for it, and how to build a forecast that holds up under scrutiny.
When the founder is the best salesperson, revenue walks out the door at closing. Why Rainmaker Risk discounts your valuation, and how to build a sales engine that doesn't depend on you.
Concentration risk is one of the most common deal-killers in an acquisition. The Concentration Curse across clients, people, and industries, and how to reduce it well before a sale.
The intuition that built the business becomes a liability as it grows. The Gut Instinct Gap, and how to turn founder judgment into decision systems your team can run without you.
Constant meetings feel like planning, but they rarely connect to a plan. The Meeting Mirage, and the annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily rhythms that turn activity into alignment.
Every new post lands in Better, Faster, my weekly newsletter for founder-CEOs, along with questions for your team and a book worth reading.
