Mark C. Winters warns visionaries against surrounding themselves with yes-men. Genius founders often attract helpers instead of leaders, then wonder why talented people leave. Build a team where people might be smarter than you, let go of control, and trust them.
Hi, everybody. It's Mark C. Winners again. Today I'm talking to you visionaries out there, and I want to talk to you about one of the things that we teach all of our folks at Rocket Fuel, all of our visionaries and integrators, is that it's really important that you're developing a strong leadership team. Now pay careful attention to what I said there. It's a leadership team. It is not a leader sheep team. And yes, that is sheep. So. So not a leadership team. So what do I mean by that? In Rocket Fuel, in chapter one, we dedicated some language to developing talent, the topic of developing talent and some of the specific challenges that visionaries face in that area. So I wanted to call you back to a few of those. I'd really like you to go back and read it in chapter one. But one of the challenges, what Jim Collins calls a genius with a thousand helpers, that's where the visionaries, the genius and everybody else is just kind of helping them drive, do what they do. Another one is when the company is really your identity as the visionary. It's your platform, and everybody else is just kind of supporting the rock star on their platform, if you will. Another challenge is you're competitive by nature as the visionary. And that competitive drive, while it got you through a lot of things and it's really something that you see as a positive trait in meetings, sometimes it can show up as a very aggressive thing because you're trying to win and in some exchange. And so I want you to recognize that that can show up in some ways that hurts the healthy interaction of the team. Some visionaries have a certain look that they cast that man, it will just shut other team members down in a heartbeat. And finally, Jim Collins talks about the rugged individualist that kind of pulls everything all together by themselves and really kind of carries the company all on their shoulders. So all of those things, I want to give you credit for having those traits because frankly, the. Those are probably the things that got you where you are. But I want you to recognize that they're not the things that are going to get you there. They're not the things that are going to get you to the next level, to that place you want to go. And I want to caution you that those types of behaviors can really run off the strong young talent that you might bring into the organization. You'll frankly scare them away. And the next thing you know, you're kind of looking around one day and you have just a bunch of sheep standing there bahing at you and just kind of doing, you know, following along your lead and just doing, doing whatever you want them to do, which isn't really what we're looking for. So we want you to be comfortable bringing folks in as leaders into your company that are smarter than you are, they're better than you are. You need to be comfortable doing that. So letting go, you need to trust. We've talked a little bit about trust before. It's not about control. It's about you believing that you have the right people there and that they can actually do the things that you need them to do. So that's one situation. You let go, you bring those people in and you give it to them or you look at yourself and frankly, if that's just who you are and you behave that way and that's really important to you, then you just need to stay right where you are. At the end of the day, it's your choice. Okay, so three key things to wrap this one up. First, it's not a leadership team. It's a leadership team that we want you to build and we want you to build a strong one. Second thing, I'm not criticizing you, I just want you to recognize that what got you here is not the same stuff that's going to get you there. Okay? The third thing, it is critical that you must build a strong leadership team. Thanks for watching Today at Rocket Fuel Ventures we're all about creating the most powerful visionary integrator duos on the planet. And we do that by helping you crystallize what it means to be a visionary and an integrator so you can understand if that concept can help you and if you decide it can, to get connected with, with your complementary counterpart and then finally maximize that relationship to make it everything it can be to help you take your company to the next level. So if you want more rocket fuel, please check out our website@rocketfuelnow.com and that's where you can sign up for the weekly videos like this. Be sure you're getting these on a regular basis. You can also take the assessments so you can understand as a visionary or as an integrator where your strengths lie and what the shape is of your two piece puzzles that can help you find that complementary counterpart. And finally, of course, read the book Rocket Fuel and keep those great reviews coming. So until next time, go Rocket.
