“Founding and growing a CHB is no mean feat for a set of entrepreneurial partners…it makes drinking from a fire hose look kind of rudimentary, actually. Is there a whole lot less human drama in a CHB than in a family-owned business? Barely! Typically, everywhere you turn in a CHB there are challenges related to talent management, relationships, culture, and performance. We see our role as assisting the owners in tamping down the drama and maximizing the organizational performance.”
The simplest way to explain this point of view is: Profitability is about Performance, and Performance is about People—one person at a time and collectively. Consequently, one of the biggest levers you have in moving your enterprise to the next level is your people…is Talent.
While the math above seems terribly straightforward, it may not go down all that smoothly for the typical entrepreneur. Why? Because most of you are wired differently from the Average Bear. To fully capitalize on your company’s People Value Chain requires a certain constitution that is not natural to most entrepreneurs.
If you’re wired like that the classic founder and entrepreneur we work with, then you’re likely to get most fired up about quarterbacking a strong offense (i.e. marketing and selling and/or product development) and less interested in organizational design and acquiring and cultivating talent. Entrepreneurs are like hunters in many ways, keen on moving on to the next kill and not spending too much time sitting around the hearth and nurturing the young ‘uns along.
This archetypal entrepreneurial profile presents some fascinating paradoxes. On the one hand, entrepreneurs are true cultural heroes for so many. Many of their behavioral characteristics and their accomplishments warrant this reputation, to be sure. On the other hand, we know from our work that a person’s weaknesses are typically simply their strengths to excess. And, entrepreneurs can be excessive! Some examples of how their Strengths can easily transpose into Weaknesses:
Then, consider that there is likely more than one of these classical entrepreneurial types among the partners in a closely-held. We like our 25-year track record with the talent management and organizational performance solutions we bring to these kinds of business situations.