Regardless of your willingness to be “harnessed”, the author’s metaphor paints a useful picture. It implies being in alignment with the coach driver and others on the team, moving quickly on the journey to a desired destination, and staying focused on the path ahead. The reward isn’t oats (except if the destination isn’t achieved) but equity in an enterprise that results in personal and societal wealth.
The authors suggest acquiring, retaining, and motivating results-orientated people, sharing and scaling equity in the enterprise, and rewarding :boldness and success.” Probably nothing you haven’t read in most business publications or heard from every training course or professional speaker during your career. So what are the true lessons here, and how can they be applied in this challenging economy?
For one, acquiring talented people frequires new staffing strategies. In the course of leading two recent Founder/CEO searches for early-stage companies, I’ve found that the total pool of qualified candidates is actually larger since these companies have a shorter runway to profitability and many are primarilyabout organizational survival. I’ve also found serial entrepreneurs interested in “getting back into the game” as a diversification (or recovery) strategy within their retirement portfolio.
I believe that the traditional early-stage staffing model is evolving from full-time hires to virtual teams formed “just-in-time” to tackle due diligence, proof-of-concept, and related business issues in early-stage and portfolio companies. Some talented people are reluctant to commit to full-time roles with a prolonged time to an exit by IPO or acquisition, especially if a relocation is required. And venture capitalists are reluctant to invest if a rapid path to revenue and a sound implementation plan is in place.
The solution could be accessing a robust pipeline of seasoned players with complementary skills that launch, accelerate, and implement key business initiatives to grow, realign, or turnaround early-stage organizations. In this model, “harnessing” talent requires the additional skills of working in a virtual team, contributing functional and industry strengths in clearly defined roles, and achieving meaningful results rapidly applying a “First and Every 100 Days” methodology.
I plan to present a slate of Founder/CEO and virtual team finalists to my fellow New Mexico Angel deal partners next Thursday after a final round of meetings with the prospects and our inventor. I’ll report out on our decision and implementation plan in my next blog entry. Thoughts and comments?