Actionable Leadership
In the past 34 years I have completed 30 transactions as a founder/CEO, angel investor and business mentor, including risk capital investments (PE, VC and Family Offices), acquisitions and trade sales in Europe, North America and Asia. I am an LP investor in AgFunder III.
Prior to IGS I had assembled and led the Crew that drove the turnaround, transformation, growth and exit of global enterprise SaaS vendor WorkPlace. The business was drifting when PE firm LDC in London asked if I would join as Exec Chair. It was rapidly obvious that, with new leadership and some tough decisions there was enough of a skilled, committed team in place to make the business work. What was needed was a totally new and positive culture, so they asked me to become CEO to design this.
The story of how to build a Culture as a Platform (CaaP) is captured here: Enjoy!
My view of great leadership is that it’s not about standing over people like most conventional organisation charts with the CEO at the top. It’s about motivating, inspiring and empowering people to be the very best they can be. This picture sums up that philosophy:
It takes 15 players to score a try. As a life-long rugby fan (and distinctly average player, later a girls’ coach) I am acutely aware that rugby folk come in all shapes and sizes because there are so many different roles on the pitch. It’s the same in your company: I don’t care who scores the try or makes the sale, it takes every function of a business to achieve a mission.
That’s why Respect and Collaboration are so vital. We need each other to help us succeed you’ll see in CaaP how we supported and learned from one another. Never Hire Yourself: My role as a CEO was always to empower others who had skills I did not have and being the least qualified person in a team was a very happy place, as, mostly, I could rely on those around me.
This means you can give your crew Permission to Succeed: start by giving them tasks and missions where they’re like to deliver, then praise and reward that success. Build their confidence. Take the lid off good people because 90% of the time they will exceed your expectations: hard-working humans innately want to do a great job.
So, if you assume they want to do a great job, encourage them (literally) to Proceed Until Apprehended. What you’ll find is they do exceed your expectations, drive things forward, innovate and create extra, unexpected value. This in turn will inspire them to do even more. See these ideas in action in CaaP
