Thou shall know thyself and thou shall squabble
A case for self-awareness and a good old argument.
I’m one of the lucky ones. I am building my current business with a cofounder that knows me better than anyone. He balances out most of my weaknesses. I am also (controversially) married to him. We both have been able to learn a lot from previous cofounder relationships to make this one work.
Having supported more than 120 early-stage businesses through programmes I’ve worked on, my angel investing and startup mentoring, I’ve seen it all. Some founders excel and seem to find the perfect way of building a team. For others, this poses one of the most severe stumbling blocks. Some work better as solo founders. Others struggle to scale without a cofounder — or cofounding team — around them. Many experience a founder conflict. I have, in my almost decade of startups, not been part of or run an accelerator where there wasn’t at least cofounder fall-out. There is often a lot of blaming; heated by emotion that doesn’t usually help with resolving the situation.
In my experience, many cofounders and solo founders forget that they must start with assessing themselves.
Higher self-awareness leads to better decision making, coordination and conflict management, after all. I’m not talking about doing one of those self-assessment tests to define what kind of team player you are. It’s also not about a list of skills you believe you have honed over the years. A study, including over 300,000 participants, found that individuals were only 29% accurate when assessing their own capabilities. The accuracy was even lower with work-related skills. Clearly, we are bad at assessing ourselves. It takes a combination of internal and external self-assessment to help highlight gaps. What is your own view? How do others see you? It’s also a process that needs to repeat as we change and learn. You might think you’re a born CEO, because you love the thrill of pitching to investors. However, your pitches might — unfortunately — leave your audience bored.
The questions below are a good way to start improving your self-awareness as founder. Be honest with yourself and ask those closest to you for their sincere view:
· What can I do well? What can I not do? Where can I improve?
· Where do I need help?
· Am I open to feedback?
· How do I handle failure? How do I handle success?
· How do I make decisions?
· Do I communicate clearly and empathetically?
· What are my priorities?
The reflection is not the final part, though. Once we have identified where we fall short and where we excel, we can work on getting better. Some strengths or weaknesses will only become visible in extreme situations. How do you deal if your client has changed their mind? What if you are running out of money and the investment round is not shaping up? How do you cope and hold your team together then? How do your cofounders help you make it through? How did some of those more heated arguments or discussions conclude? What if you disagree about a way forward?
It’s tempting to wash your hands of a stressful situation and never think of it again. This is where many miss a huge opportunity. Learning from experience is the most effective way to build confidence. It encourages you to do it again or better next time. This only works if coupled with reflection to highlight the key lessons.
The examples above might make it sound as if conflict is only to be expected in worst case scenarios. I’m guilty of having believed that harmonious teams are the better teams. That conflict is an early sign of failure.
Working with a cofounder and team that doesn’t shy away from conflict has changed that. It creates a culture of trust and accountability. I’ve learned to see harmony at the cost of real accountability as a major red flag. The planning might have been fine with no real disagreements but, months later, no one remembers commitments or feels responsible for the outcome.
In ‘Five Dysfunctions of a Team’, Patrick Lencioni explains that the absence of trust is the root of the problem. It leads to a fear of conflict. It’s impossible to challenge the status quo in an environment where I don’t trust that my team will look out for me. Nonetheless, conflict is necessary. It helps a team make decisions that everyone commits to, even if they disagree. By being in the room they understand the path forward. This makes room for people feeling accountable for their work.
Ask yourself the following:
· Am I comfortable sharing my weaknesses and mistakes with my team members?
· Do I avoid expressing differing opinions or concerns to maintain harmony?
· Am I fully committed to the decisions and plans made by the team, even if I initially disagreed?
· Do I sometimes undermine decisions made by the team after the fact?
· Have I ever blamed external factors when I fell short of meeting expectations?
· Am I willing to make sacrifices for the greater good of the team’s success?
I remember sitting in a dark, leaky basement office with my first startup’s cofounders. Startup life was not glamorous. Huddled together, we were talking about titles and there and then decided who was going to be our CEO, CTO and so on. The titles made sense and reflected what we saw as our strong suits and backgrounds at the time. It was a big step and a simple decision that defined our way forward. From that moment, we were accountable and needed to make it work. We put A LOT of expectations on each other. It’s easy to forget that you are first-time founders, very inexperienced and 100% winging it. Without taking the time to reflect on where everyone is, conflict is inevitable. If you don’t have the right level of trust in your team this can also be fatal.
Only on reflection, years after my first startup, did some of this make sense to me. With emotion removed, there are so many ways in which I could have been a better co-founder. I’m glad I have these experiences and am happy to continue building on them in my new business, with my new team.
I’m far from having found the holy grail of cofounding relationships. I am still convinced that this is an important piece of the puzzle. We all deserve to work in environments where we are safe and feel valued. Going through the questions above could be your first step to achieving that. Your team will thank you for it.
If this is something you are struggling with, or would like to talk about, we would love to help. Book in for an office hours chat and let’s talk!
“Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.”
— Patrick Lencioni
For more information about Metta and the work we do, head to our website. Check out our podcast Metta Talks to hear the latest about startups, innovation, and sustainability. The team is also on Twitter — reach out to us @mettatalks.
Check out some of our other articles —
- How to make your startup both innovative and sustainable
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- ESG and Sustainability Strategy
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- Financial Planning with Impact
- Ecosystems Thinking
- 15 years in Climate Tech — What’s Changed?
- Analysing Iraq’s Startup Ecosystem
Want to chat? Let’s talk 🗣
Gabriela Matic — gabi@metta.partners | linkedin.com/in/gabrielamatic
