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(Change is inevitable; success not so much……)

The life cycle of a company is not unlike ours as humans.  We start off as infants with all our needs met by one or two primary caretakers.  A great many successful organizations begin the same way; a couple of founders, one or two clients or customers (generally ‘friendlies’ or ‘family’ of the founders).  The small tight-knit community does it all – the strategic business planning, the sales, the fulfillment and the housekeeping. If the organization is thriving the requirements for continued success mutate.  No longer can the company get by with the cradle caregivers – the need for additional, more specifically accomplished talent, is essential.

Just as the five year old may need a kindergarten teacher, a soccer coach, a violin teacher, etc…. The company grows to need specific functional experts who also have the ability to view the sum of the parts holistically.  Having a spectacular marketing function is pointless if there isn’t a great sales team to close the deal.  And, don’t forget the import of product development.  No one can really afford to fly under the radar for the whole of the company to flourish.

The big messy reality is that companies don’t go from cradle to high functioning adulthood without many gyrations, false starts and re-directions.  There is no paint by number success plan.  That being said, there are generally accepted principles for each stage; just as we all know that it is ‘acceptable’ for a 16 year old to drive a car, whether we like it or not.

In my experience, having worked with many companies in transition, there are some basic tenets to increase the likelihood of making it out of the cradle.  My top five advice points for the founding team:

1. Match the company needs to the best talent – this is not limited to functional expertise; team members need to have good working chemistry
2. Macro-manage – delegate responsibilities and accept expert opinion, easy, huh?
3. Communicate – keep the extended team in the loop; you will get committed buy-in
4. Collaborate – refrain from too many ‘because I said so’; you will get committed buy-in (yes, that is worth repeating)
5. Implement – sometimes you just need to try it to see if it will work; be prepared to abort if metrics are not being achieved within a reasonable allotted time frame

Jacqueline ‘Jack’ Perez is now a Principal at Innovalyst, a life science consulting firm that catalyzes innovation.  Jack has a penchant for aligning marketing strategy to corporate objectives and uncovering the company’s Disruptive ConversationTM.  She has neglected her blog for months and really needs to get back to it -  MarketingSmack .

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