All posts by catalystcohort

According to US Census data there are approximately 28 million firms in the US. A whopping 22 million firms have NO employees, and average only about $42,000 per year in sales. This leaves 6 million firms with 1 or more employees.
On the other side of the Scale, only 100,000 firms have 100 or more employees; a measly .4% of the total US firms. Most business literature on growth and leadership analyze the results of these larger firms. These are the companies whose names are our common household names; Walmart, Target, Ford, Microsoft, Google, Starbucks, McDonalds and others.
In the graph below you can see evidence of an INVISIBLE CEILING made up of natural barriers to Scaling a firm.

E-Coundrum

The E-Conundrum shows that the earlier a founder moves from Entrepreneurship to Enterprise, the easier it is to reach Significant Scalable Success!

The very attributes that help lead the Entrepreneur to Survival, are the very ones that prevent their Success! These are Forbes Magazine Entrepreneurs’ personality traits in action;

  • Passion,
  • Resilience,
  • Strong Sense of Self,
  • Flexibility and
  • Vision.

The fact is business is getting harder and more complex and todays superhuman workload will be the bare minimum in a few years—JUST TO SURVIVE!

As a Company has some success and begins to grow, employees are added, complexity skyrockets, new issues surface, new competitors emerge, more time is required, and the bottom line suffers.

These “put your head down and pay attention to every detail and jump on each issue coming in the front door” character traits are exactly the opposite of the Leadership traits needed to SCALE an Enterprise!

When you add up the reasons for Failure, research shows that an AMAZING 99% are attributed to some form on lack of Know-how and Experience, not the above attributes Forbes attributes to Entrepreneurs.

This paradox is why I wrote the E Conundrum Whitepaper (click to get it!) There is an answer and that is a changed paradigm or mindset, that of an Enterpriser which is much different that and Entrepreneur!

finding_trusted-_relationships

People have innate motivations to have honest conversations with people we trust. It’s built into our DNA.

Who do we talk to when we face difficult decisions or even have great joy or sorrow in our lives?

The challenges we all face have exploded as never before in complexity and confusion and are so huge that we cannot rely only on ourselves or the general community at large or even those in our organizations to assure we stay on track and offer us support.

We need a small trusted group of people we can share the intimate details of our lives with and who care about us and in whom we can trust; a small group who can share our happiness, sadness, hopes, fears, beliefs, values, and convictions.

Bill George in preparation for his book True North reviewed transcripts from 125 leaders and determined one of the keys to sustaining leadership is having a trusted support team. It is one of the most important things people can do to stay grounded and increase in the critical leadership skill of self-awareness.

The paradox of our individualistic society is as we spend more and more time in organizations which are getting more and more impersonal, we feel the ever increasing need for in depth, authentic, open relationships. Left ever more to ourselves, with no counsel or advice, it is harder to be self-aware and we become prone to bad decisions.

The bottom line is people yearn for friendships with people they can trust and admire!
Catalyst Cohorts was built to become this kind of a safe haven. Differences in beliefs and backgrounds serve to enrich the counsel and mentoring, and over time trusted relationships are built.

blog2We have all seen this image at some point in our lives- it is the power of compound interest.

Notice the hockey stick curve? This is the amazing benefit of a dedicated month after month strategy of saving.

But did you know this principle has impact in other areas of life?

Yes, the law of compounding works in many areas of our lives!

Take my family for instance.I have 4 children and 11 grandchildren. It took just under 20 years to get the 4 children. In another 20 years, 11 grandchildren (and growing) In 20

more years I could have between 20 and 40 great grandchildren; and maybe 100 great-great grandchildren 20 years later.

This is the law of compounding at work! Doing positive things over and over in such a way that the result is saved.

The application to business is the benefit of a Continuous Improvement Process.

Basically, you make continuous deposits of new systems and processes to improve the operations of

your business.

Rather than just reacting to all the crazy stuff that comes in the door day by day, you begin to catalog and manage issues and if they are important enough for you to pay

attention to them, you figure out how to solve the issue forever. This will require a system or process change. Problem solved, value of the business increased. Basically it’s a business value saving program.

Over time through the law of compounding the value of your business grows and grows and multiplies just like the interest table above.