Mad About Change
Around the fall of 1988, I got a call from an entrepreneur who wanted to pitch me his business concept. He somehow thought our company should be his primary sponsor and thus investor. This was an unusual pitch.
As long as I’ve been starting, building, and fixing companies, I’ve wanted to help others who were in a similar situation of founding a company and building it from the ground up. In some sense, it was a combination of my love of helping other startups, combined with the saying, “misery loves company,” especially as we were working on solutions to so many problems of our own. I liked to be around other entrepreneurs just to share ideas and to hear their solutions.
He invited me to lunch directly across the street from our offices where we sat on the patio as he pitched his idea. I’m an optimist, so I’m always thinking about how to make something work, no matter what. His idea was a concert promotion business, yet he had no prior experience in the business, and nothing unique in his approach. As he pitched his plan, it had more holes than a pasta strainer. I was there to be helpful, so I just listened to the entire pitch without saying a word until he was finished.
When he finally stopped talking, I started to walk him through the problems he still needed to solve, one at a time. I first explained that we were not the right partner anyway, because there would be no benefit for us, given the location of our operating company in Bellingham, WA versus his venue in Seattle, ninety miles away, where he’d need promotional help. I went on to tell him what needed to be solved on a fundamental level, thinking we’d have a discussion about solutions.
I got out about three key points before he erupted in anger and began to swear and yell at me, followed by a complete meltdown in the restaurant. He suddenly went storming off, slamming chairs out of his way, all before our food arrived. It was a full-blown tantrum. I can’t imagine what it looked like to the others in the restaurant, but I was very embarrassed by the scene.
Since that incident, I’ve met with well over a hundred entrepreneurs seeking guidance and never once have I seen anything close to that behavior. I remember the scene every time I meet with someone. I have encountered the entrepreneur who won’t listen to reason, yet still remains polite. I don’t mind disagreement. After all, there are thousands of ways to run a business.
What made me write about it after all these years was the thought that he was the one individual who probably acted in a way that others wished they could act yet didn’t. I’m not out to ruin anyone’s entrepreneurial vision, and I want to help, but I will never tell anyone what they want to hear even if they don’t want to hear it. In fact, my constructive critique is always intended to give them a leap forward.
I’m coming out of a project right now where a company spent ten years on a largely false premise. If someone pointed out their problems much sooner, they would have either found solutions or not wasted ten years, and tens of millions working on a false premise that still led to failure. Knowing the founders, I doubt they would have listened. Even at the end, they too erupted in anger when their lead investor stopped writing checks, but not in public.
For some reason, entrepreneurs often take criticism as a challenge to who they are, as if by pointing out hurdles, someone is killing the dream, when it’s rarely the intention, and certainly not mine. I want to see others succeed. I consider it a responsibility to share what I think, even when it’s not popular.
Now and then, I wonder what ever happened to that guy. To him, the whole world was in his way. I suspect I told him what others were telling him and he’d had enough. I was just the one who finally set him off. I suspect there was a lot going on in his head to have such a strong reaction, but still, it reminds me of the nature of my work today.
As an advisor, the easiest thing would be to agree to everything a client tells us and just take the money and play along. I can’t imagine ever doing that with a client. It’s not helpful to identify problems without solutions and it’s up to the company to make the decision to pursue the solution or not. We’re merely suggesting they consider other factors. Middlerock is an experienced-based advising firm. It’s not just our experience, we talk to others and connect our clients with people who we trust. Our entire mission is to share our collective experience.
We have clients who don’t like to follow our advice. That’s fine if they don’t. Some may even get mad when we tell them something they don’t want to hear. It doesn’t make our guidance any less valid, or incorrect. In fact, I joked to a friend recently when he asked me what summarized my work. I said, it was telling people what they don’t want to hear for over thirty years.
Yet, we’ve saved a few companies along the way and that makes those challenging times all worth it. With so many ways to run a business, we’re not upset if someone doesn’t follow our suggestions. It is disappointing when things go badly as a result of not listening to reason, but that’s the nature of this business. We are just another opinion.
The interesting part for me is that this unwillingness to face the reality of one’s situation is often the very fabric of the culture of the company. There are companies whose core underlying culture is to not face up to the circumstances they face. There is a cliff ahead, but nobody is worried about it, because of their pluralistic ignorance. They will march right off that cliff.
We become the experts of our environment. We adapt to the environment around us every day. If you’re home watching Jerry Springer all day, you become an expert at all things Jerry Springer. If you’re playing the drums all day, you become good at playing the drums. If you’re working in a dysfunctional company, guess what, you become good at dysfunction by becoming equally as dysfunctional, which is how you survive the environment. We’re all the products of our environments.
I meet countless senior leaders who tell me how bad their daily work environment has become, yet they are there every day. Often, they won’t leave the dysfunctional company because it’s comfortable and it’s a paycheck. I often wonder why they will compromise themselves but it’s the same thing over and over, never realizing that they have become a part of the Borg. They don’t realize they have learned to adapt to dysfunction by playing along. Suggest change and they too resist it.
People say they want change, want to pursue that business idea, but if it means change, or becoming uncomfortable, the majority won’t do it. It environment, no matter how dysfunctional and chaotic, is like a drug, and instead get mad at the suggestion that something needs to change.
You see this adaption to dysfunction in war-torn regions where bombs and gunfire are going off, yet shoppers continue as if it’s a normal day. You get enough people who are numb to the dysfunction, and ultimately they just live with it. It is the culture, and everyone is participating.
To be effective, clients have to be ready to be uncomfortable. Ask any company that’s gone through a major process certification, such as ISO. It can be painful! Yet, if you have what it takes to do it, it can be the one thing that catapults your company into a brighter future. On a personal note, sometimes it’s my discomfort that tells me that I’m on the right track to something, especially when it’s my actions that’s causing my personal discomfort. Had I given that guy the answer he wanted, he would have failed, and I would have been comfortable and we both would have lost.