We don’t rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.
A little over a month ago, I started this blog with a simple purpose: to give Founder/CEOs and their teams simple ways to build growth through teams. I was tired and bored of the myth and superstition surrounding teams. Through years of working with, leading, and coaching early-stage teams, I had seen great teams build successful companies and bad ones destroy them.
Investors routinely point to teams as 70% of more of their decision to invest. They point to team problems as a primary reason why companies fail. VCs, accelerators, and cash-strapped startups spend a lot of loot doing retreats and team building sessions. But no one seems to know what makes a team work, at least not in a practical way. After decades of thinking about this, learning everything I could, and working with a lot of companies, I set out to cut through the nonsense and try to capture what I had learned about teams, especially the early ones.
Those first posts hit the last week of February. The day after I posted the last one, I got sick. By the time I was recovering, a lot of people were sick. Streets were empty. Buildings stood dark and empty. Teams went online-only in the space of a week. It felt like I had been writing for an ancient time.
But I was wrong.
Teams aren’t going away. Solo founders aren’t going to create scalable innovation on their own. Good teams aren’t going to stop growing great companies, and bad teams aren’t going to stop killing bad ones. If anything, the fundamentals matter more than anything now.
Once the initial shock wore off, I saw what usually hides beneath the surface: the good teams pulled together to deliver, and the weak ones began to fall apart. Companies and founders that had worked on strengthening their teams barely missed a beat. Those who deferred that work or viewed team performance as a nice to have? They’re treading water at best. I could give you some parallel to the fable of the ants and the grasshopper, but Archilocos said it best:
“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”
That’s not a new thought, but seeing all of society put it to the test is.
I took a pause here because I had intended to discuss timeless patterns in growth-oriented teams and founders, not current events. What I’m finding is that current events are putting those fundamentals to a high-stakes test. This isn’t the time to sit this one out.
Posts in the coming days are going to focus on the fundamentals good teams are relying upon now for growth—yes, a lot of the companies I work with are growing even in the crisis—and the exposure from the lack of those fundamentals that is causing weaker teams to fail.
Not much in a team is vague or intangible. Most everything you do as a founder can increase or decrease team health, which leads directly to increased revenue, decreased cost, and the performance of your company’s purpose. These are principles you can learn and apply, and the matter even more in a crisis—but they’re damn good habits to have before you face one.
We’re going to keep talking about what works in teams. If you hadn’t noticed, it matters.
The image above is an homage to my friend Eric Marcoullier’s excellent blog, Obvious Startup Advice. Eric and I have worked together on many things over the years, combining his experience with growing and selling great companies with my obsession for great teams and operational fundamentals. We recently introduced a group coaching program called Resilient Founder to keep great companies growing through some choppy waters, and the response has been exciting. Sharp founders know that what was true for their customers weeks ago remains true today.
