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Writer's pictureTerry Dockery

OVERCOMING FOUNDERS DISEASE

Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. You have to know a lot about a lot to get a business off the ground and to make it a going concern.


Knowing a lot about a lot is good, right? I mean, how many people can do everything that's required well enough not to become one of the majority of new businesses that fail?


Now you're cooking along feeling pretty darned good about how things are going, and you're ready to take your business to the next level so you can meet your financial goals. Who better than you to lead the charge and manage the business day-to-day and make sure you keep up that quality that's made you successful thus far?


Actually, for many of us there are plenty of leaders who could do it better than we could. Those qualities that make for a good entrepreneur, like risk taking, don't necessarily make us good leaders and managers. But we usually have difficulty acknowledging these limitations and getting some qualified help. This is called Founders Disease.


Who could blame us? We birthed our businesses and raised them with a lot of love and hard work. We're not going to turn it over to some yahoo who doesn't love them as much as we do.


Our friends tell us we're just being a "control freak" but that doesn't bother us much. We're thinking "Heck, I like being in control. It beats the heck out of the alternative--somebody else being in control."


Then we remember that the only real limitations of a business are the weaknesses of its leader, and we resolve to think like a world class entrepreneur and not become the bottleneck to our own success and happiness. Are we smart or what?


High-Performance Habits


  1. Know your strengths and your weaknesses--nobody is good at everything.

  2. Look at your business from your entrepreneur's perspective. What does it need right now, and am I the best person to do it? 

  3. Be very selective about who you bring onto your team, and make sure they love your baby too.


Copyright Terry "Doc" Dockery, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

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