The Founder’s Paradox: How to Lead Without Losing Yourself

Welcome to Enterprise Radio, the signature show of the Enterprise Podcast Network, featuring some of the most prominent business professionals in the world today. And now your host, Eric Dye.

This is Eric Dye. And once again, welcome to Enterprise Radio, a part of vpn, the Enterprise Podcast Network. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Thomas J. Powell, founder of the Founder's Office, a private strategy firm that helps entrepreneurs lead through complexity with clarity, structure and longview thinking. And Dr. Powell, we thank you for joining us here today on Enterprise Radio.

Eric, thank you. It's my pleasure.

And the pleasure certainly all ours as well. Thanks so much for your time. So let's get started and get right into things. Tell us, what is the founders isolation paradox and why does it show up even when things are going well?

It's a great question. And having, you know, I'm a practitioner by trade, I started as an entrepreneur and came to academia later. Part of the trick in academia is you've got to name stuff. So we kept seeing this recurring theme of founders specifically that had grown a company to generally between the 10 million to 100 million US range. And at that point, especially as they're peaking that area, they've started to acquire a team around them that is their, you know, they call them a seat now through.

Appreciation of titles, it goes, you know, we've got my chief financial officer, I've got my chief operating officer, I got maybe my chief marketing officer. All these people around them. Oftentimes the founder has also had their spouse that helped them start the company, may still even be doing some of the books or the marketing. That seems to be the common theme. They have outside accounting, they have outside.

Attorneys. They also then generally have outside banking relationships. All of those relationships are actually at different pivot points for the business than where the founder stands in isolation. And we recognize it usually at about 2am when the founder is having a big decision to be made and none of those people around them, spouse included, can help them make that decision because they don't have all of the picture and none of the other people are actually firmly in the founder's court because they have their own driving factors, even the spouse. The spouse wants to have the family and the founder taken care of personally. They care less about the business and actually oftentimes will tell the founder, I don't care if you quit the business, I don't care about the money. And the executives don't care that the founder is putting their house up for or collateral to get that next line of credit because they need that line of Credit to grow the business. The outside attorney neglects to tell the founder that they actually are representing the company. They no longer represent that founder directly. So the founder doesn't generally actually have counsel. So that's where this title comes in there. And it's what the founder's office, we practice as the founder's advocate, helping them see all of those inner complexities and how they move forward to grow their company.

Certainly some awesome details to get us underway here today and to open up the conversation further. Now tell me also, what blind spots do founders face as they scale and how can they build structure to protect themselves? Get into that a little bit, if you would.

That's great. If we were talking mostly in the US but it is a worldwide phenomenon. Generally the number one blind spot that founders have is they don't know what they don't know. And they have a high level of hubris or confidence because they've been able to get the business to that point. Now many founders say, no, I don't have that. They surround themselves with coaches and people that are giving them the next steps along the way. But usually they don't have that person that has been in their shoes before. And a simple example of that is a lot of times we find the founders that have built a company to 10, $25 million and they're excited because they're bringing on their chief financial officer and their chief financial officer comes from a large company that has, you know, and they were in the role at that large company. And because they bring that large company credibility, they think that CFO is the one who's going to get them to the next step. The thing that they don't realize is that the CFO that started when a company was 250 million is not the same CFO who can grow a company from 15 to 20 million to that hundred million dollar mark. They generally don't have those skills. So that's one of the first places we look at when we're looking at where the founder is at that time.

Also, Dr. Powell, how do you help high performing founders lead without losing themselves or their families in the process? Certainly could be a challenge.

I'm sure we have this thing called balance. And I think balance is one of these challenges out there that is elusive forever. And the way that I have found balance for myself being a founder is more of an integration. So as my kids were growing and they're older now, and many of them are in our businesses through our family office, it was incorporating family experiences within the business. And Incorporating businesses within the family, but then having a clear demarcation. And also, as we started this conversation, we asked where I am. I live at Lake Tahoe, so one of my passions is skiing. And skiing is a big part of my life so that I can escape everything else that I'm doing. When I'm going down a crevasse, I have to be focused in that exact minute. And that ability to focus in something that's outside of business is what allows many founders to find themselves and to be more present when they're with their family, with their friends, with their business.

And that's pretty awesome, being located in Lake Tahoe. And you're certainly doing very well for yourself, for sure. Today we're speaking with Dr. Thomas J. Powell, founder of the Founder's Office, a private strategy firm that helps entrepreneurs lead through complexity with clarity, structure and longview thinking. And he's joined us here today on Enterprise radio, part of VPN, the Enterprise Podcast Network. Now continuing on, Dr. Powell, what decision frameworks have you seen that keeps businesses alive when everything gets so hard?

So we have a, we have a six keys of capital. And again, our specific places are not to come in and talk about strategies specific to what that business does in their space, but that affect all businesses. And our six Cs really start with clarity. So being able to define the value, the structure, and even the compliance that's needed to be able to grow from there is alignment, structure, stewardship, velocity, and legacy. So those are the frameworks of the six pieces that we bring in when we're meeting with the founders to start with and say, okay, where is something going wrong? And in a lot of cases it's in number one or number two, because without clarity and alignment, you can't really build a stable structure. If you think about it as a Jenga table, if that bottom pieces are unstable, no matter how much you pull at the top, the bottom is going to be what offsets that.

And a great vivid example and a visual, no doubt there. Good stuff. Now, legacy also is a theme in your work, I understand. How do founders design it in real time instead of waiting until the end?

You know, Eric, it is absolutely imperative to design it and modify it as you go along because we change, we adapt, we grow as humans, and even our perspectives oftentimes will change a bit. So the 60 year old self is not the same looking backwards as the 20 year old self looking backwards and forwards. So the legacy, I think that is most critical is not passing on the money, it's passing on the ideals and the lessons that have been learned, and there's probably never been a better time to be alive of being able to pass that along. As humans, we don't, you know, we don't come in with this book of rules already imprinted upon us. We have to learn it. And it's oftentimes through our own experiences and more so through other people's experiences. So for us and our family, building that legacy that shares the ideas of both our strengths and our weaknesses, we where did we fall? Where do we pick ourselves up? How do we build resilience? How do we help people that are down yet allow them to actually build the strength from having to go through those? Those are the legacy questions. As much as how do you pass on $100 million or a billion dollars to a family member and not have that destroy them?

Certainly some good advice there. Certainly working as you go along on your legacy. And it makes a lot of sense. Certainly you change your way of thinking from 20 years old to 60 years old or anywhere in between. No doubt about that. Good stuff. Really appreciate that. As we conclude, Dr. Powell, any closing thoughts, a final word, a takeaway, or anything else you'd like to bring our attention to as we conclude today?

You know, Eric, first of all, I believe firmly, and it's in my own life, because I grew up, you know, without parents, in a breezeway, my older sister raising me, and I've. I've managed to live just an amazing life surrounded by people who, fortunate for me, love me, even despite all the errors that I've made in my life, but that I love and I love being around. I love the business and I love my free time that I get to do in the, in the sports industry. So most all of that exists because of free enterprise. And it again, doesn't matter where I am, whether I'm in Africa or I'm in Asia or I'm in Europe, I'm a dual citizen with the eu. You know, it is free enterprise that really does cause this world to continue to be free. We create a lot of jobs, we create the opportunities for ourselves and our families. And so what it takes is resilience and learning. A never ending appetite for being able to be hungry and learn more and more. And I think that's what's great about your show here, is that you share these ideas with people, both the successes and the failures, because we learn from both and that's what's to take forward.

Once again, Dr. Powell, we thank you for what you do and for joining us here today. Really a lot of great information and insight and advice per your expertise. Where can listeners get more information on the founders office online?

Foundersoffice.com and actually we have a piece for those founders out there that are looking at raising capital or want to look at their capital alignment. They can bring their deck loaded up onto our website for free and one of our analysts will take time to go through that and give them a call. So that's foundersoffice.com you can also check me out@thomasjpowell.com and that's our blogs and our videos and various things that we.

Put out and certainly some great resources to tap into for sure. Again folks, it is foundersoffice.com Dr. Powell, all the best. Thanks so much for spending a moment with us here today on Enterprise Radio.

Eric, thank you very much. Have a great day. Keep doing what you're doing.

Hey, we appreciate it. And you too. Again, we were speaking with Dr. Thomas J. Powell, founder of the Founder's Office, a private strategy firm that helps entrepreneurs lead through complexity with clarity, structure and long view thinking. And for all the details, visit foundersoffice.com and this is Eric Dye and you've been listening to Enterprise Radio, a part of vpn, the Enterprise Podcast Network. Tune into our live location as we are streaming live 24. 7 around the world@epodcastnetwork.com live. You can also find our livestream on iTunes radio and TuneIn radio as well as the Tunein Radio app for your listening convenience. And as always, we thank you for your support and for tuning in.

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