Founder’s Syndrome

According to Wikipedia Founder's syndrome (also founderitis) is a popular term for a difficulty faced by organizations where one or more founders maintain disproportionate power and influence following the effective initial establishment of the project, leading to a wide range of problems for both the organization and those involved in it. The passion and charisma of the founder or founders, which was such an important reason for the successful establishment of the organization, becomes a limiting and destructive force, rather than the creative and productive one it was in the early stages

For those Founders still in office… this post is for you..

What Founders Need to Know by Hildy Gottlieb

We use two analogies to describe our relationship to the organization we founded. We try not to mix these metaphors, but sometimes it happens. Here goes:

• Once you have birthed it, it is no longer your baby. Just as it is with our own children, once they are born, they are their own persons. We can guide our children, teach them, nurture them - but our son or daughter is a person in his/her own right. As is “our” organization. It’s not ours. It is its own thing. We don’t own it.
• Once you give a gift, it’s no longer yours. Ok - that’s the other metaphor. We have created this amazing gift for our community. Now that it is used and depended upon by others - now that we have given this gift to the community, it is no longer ours. It belongs to the community. That’s the definition of a gift.

From these two facts - that the organization is a being in its own right, and that that being belongs to the community, not us - come a number of other facts many founders don’t want to face.

1) Along with the decision to bring a child into the world comes the responsibility to raise it to live independently. We all know the old adage - that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. Well the part we don’t like to admit to ourselves is that there is another certainty associated with the “death” part - and that is that none of us knows exactly when our days will be done. Because we know we are not going to live forever, and we cannot know if our last day will be tomorrow or 50 years from now, it is irresponsible to run our organizations as if we will, in fact, be around forever. It is simply not fair to the organization, nor to those who benefit from the work we do. The only responsible approach, therefore, is to raise this child to NOT need us.

2) The world doesn’t owe you anything for having founded your organization. We gave up our lives to create the organization we founded. We went without sleep, sweated blood, and in our case, even went into debt. But the sad truth is that nobody owes us anything for doing that. We did it because we cared. And regardless of which metaphor you use - that of having a child, or that of giving a gift - neither of them provides for a payback. Our “payback” in having a child is in seeing our children grow and take on the world themselves. And our “payback” for giving a gift is in seeing how happy the recipient is to use that gift, hopefully for a long long time.

3) It’s not about you. Harsh, but true. It’s hard sometimes to acknowledge that regardless of how much we put into nurturing the organization we founded, in the long run, none of that really matters. It’s not about our emotional needs - regardless of what those are. It’s not about what we’ve sacrificed to make it all work, or the recognition / gratitude we think we should get. It’s about the community, which is why we created this gift in the first place. If we have not prepared the organization to survive (and dare I say thrive?) without our presence, and we therefore cannot even think of leaving, as the organization would crumble without us, then we have somehow made it about us, rather than about the community.

4) Your vision isn’t nearly as important as the organization’s vision and the community’s vision. Yes, it was our vision that founded the organization in the first place. But as the organization grows and matures, that vision may not be all there is. The ability for the organization to dramatically affect the community may be far larger than the vision we had when we first opened the doors. Doing things the way they’ve always been done, and thinking the way things have always been thought is not necessarily the best thing for the organization, nor for the community it serves. It is simply what WE would do. So if we fear the vision would change if we weren’t there, perhaps it’s time to let it evolve while we are still present.

How do you know it’s the right time to leave?

How do you know it’s the right time to leave?

I don’t think it’s always obvious or clear when to transition and to where and that is why some people remain in the same position or organization all their life. In some cases one may know it’s time to transition but other dynamics like family hinder the move.

Transition could be motivated by career growth, adventure, salary increment, age, to mention some and it could also be forced on you due to redundancy or illness. Whatever the reason, transitions are challenging and before making your decision to move, think long and hard about it.  Also explore opportunities within the organization first. Make sure that it is the best decision for you and that there is nothing that could change (promotion, pay increase, flexible scheduling, etc.) that would alter your decision.

Some of the signs that it’s time to leave are:

1. Loss of Purpose and Passion
Like any relationship, when your career has no meaning, it’s lost its purpose.  When you are not excited about it, then you’ve lost your passion.   If you have grown tired of getting up in the morning to compete for something you don’t believe in anymore – it’s time to move on.  Your happiness is central to your ability to perform and advance in your career.

2. Talent Potential Not Valued
When your talent is not valued, it’s difficult to stay motivated.   This is some cases happens when your work doesn’t grow even after you have gone for evening classes and completed your degree or masters.  The organization you are in may not have a job for you with your increased skills set or they may be inflexible to accommodate your potential talents.
You must value your talent potential more than anyone else.   Never allow your talent to be taken for granted.  If it is, it may be time to move on.

3. Professional Growth Is Stunted
If you are bored, dissatisfied and unfulfilled, you must assess yourself and your career.  For example, are you associating yourself with the right people?  Are you in a comfort zone that is not allowing you to grow?  Are you a big fish in a small pond?
When you go to work each day, are you stretching yourself to do more?  Get out of the comfort zone and put your entrepreneurial skills to the test.   If you are unable to challenge yourself to grow and mature, then how can your employer help you?  Are they investing in your professional development or are they content with your performance?
If there is no solution in sight, you must move on – or pay the price later on in your career when your resume doesn’t reflect enough success stories to merit advancement in your career.

4. Workplace Culture & Values
A hostile work environment that lacks transparency.  This type of workplace culture becomes corrupted and begins to impact your performance and ability to advance.   For example, when your employer doesn’t keep the organizational values that attracted you to the organization in the first place, you should be concerned about its leadership and whether or not your employer deserves your talent and capabilities.

5. Not Sufficiently Rewarded
Your employer can invest in your career in a variety of ways – salary, bonus, professional development, benefits, stock-options, mentorship, sponsorship, promotions, etc.     Only you know your hierarchy of needs – and what matters most to you.
Rewards are not emotional – they are qualitative and quantitative measurements.  If you are not being rewarded for your work – based on market standards – it’s time to consider a career change.

6. Your Personal Brand Remains Dormant
If your employer does not allow you to be your genuine self at work – then it becomes impossible to perform and contribute at your highest levels.   Being genuine means you can think, act and innovate in ways that come most naturally to you.   When you become a victim of an identity crisis that is caused by your employer – it’s time to evaluate your career.

To know when it is time to transition, review these six critical factors carefully and evaluate how they apply to your own career. Do not be in a rush to make such an important decision. Check if there are opportunities in your own organization first. When you finally make the decision, ensure that you transition out with integrity, grace and style.

Does your talk match your walk? - Transitioning as Founder CEO

Where there is a beginning there is an end…I must however confess that when I founded The Youth Banner in 2010, spent days and nights thinking through our flagship program, putting all I had learnt together, consulted my colleagues in the youth employment arena and used every resource I could gather, I never thought of the end.

I spent five solid years fully focused on achieving our Vision: Developed and Economically Empowered Youth, and Mission: To create an enabling environment for youth to earn sustainable incomes. It is only last year, five years later, that the thought of leaving was planted in my mind. This was when the Chair of The Youth Banner (TYB) Board and I attended a governance workshop organised through one of our development partners. The participants were from different organizations, some younger and some older than TYB. We learnt many useful things on governance but my take home was that I never want to be accused of bringing TYB down because of the Founder’s Syndrome. My one question was when does the Founder become a problem to the organization? I will be talking more about the Founder’s Syndrome in the coming weeks. At the end of the three days’ workshop my mind was made up: I will leave TYB while the going is good….

At the same governance workshop, I was reminded that in the NGO-type organisations, (TYB is registered as a company limited by guarantee without shares, therefore a Not-for-Profit), the founder has no shares. This means that irrespective of the time, energy and resources spent at the organization, when the time comes to leave, you only walk out with your handbag (in my case). Even the computer belongs to the organisation!

For two months after the governance workshop, I was totally distracted and this was probably for the first time since I founded TYB in 2010. I asked myself hard questions like: How many active working years do I still have (God permitting)? How many more years do I want to give TYB? What does work beyond TYB look like?

This month, 1^st July, I finally wrote that letter, the resignation letter. It is not the first resignation letter I have written but this one was completely different. I was resigning from the organization I founded. I almost felt like I was divorcing my family. I will be serving a three months’ notice as agreed with the Board. Note, in most cases you serve notice as agreed on the employment contract. I do not have an employment contract, nobody contracted me, I just started working….

My resignation letter in part said and I quote ‘It has been my great privilege to work with an exceptionally dedicated team of managers, officers and trainers. I am exceedingly grateful for all the long hours and hard work The Youth Banner employees have put even at challenging times.

Whilst thoroughly looking forward to my next phase, I must say that I will miss working at The Youth Banner, the organization I founded and whose Vision and Mission I still believe in. Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your CEO these last 6 years’

In the coming weeks, I will be sharing this transition journey with you. Keep following...

Sustainable Community Project

The challenge for my community project is job creation and sustainability. The motivation to have a digital literacy community project was to empower youth and women so that they can improve their livelihood through ICT related jobs. As I had explained earlier, I visualize many youth working online and supporting themselves and their families. I visualize women connecting to check for government procurement opportunities, I visualize many community connections motivated by digital literacy.  For this project to have this kind of impact, I need for it to be sustainable.

Increasingly, the emphasis on the sustainability of such a project has moved to engaging communities in order to catalyze self-sustaining growth. Community experts now clearly explain that real change comes from empowering individuals in the community with the capacity to use, maintain and run the community projects.  This means it is not merely about money but more about training and mentorship support. Effective project development therefore requires interventions to be:

• People-focused
• Participatory
• Based on strengths, not needs
• Based on strong partnerships
• Holistic
• Flexible and dynamic

It is also equally important to achieve an effective level of communication and understanding that enables communities to be involved in the project by:

• Inspiring them to identify, manage and control their own development aspirations
• Ensuring the project goals and objectives meet the real needs of the community
• Ensuring the project strategy is appropriate to local circumstances
• Building partnerships, ownership and commitment needed for effective implementation

In my attempt to build an effective level of communication and understanding for the community as well as Buy-In for my community project, I invited thirty opinion leaders to a meeting last week. These were men and women recommended by community leaders for their interest in either youth, women or community development as a whole. The group included youth, women and church leaders. We discussed the project goals and objectives and the importance of maintaining a partnership with them that results in real ownership and commitment to the project.

After a three hour meeting that included group discussions to identify current challenges and ways of overcoming them the group agreed that the project is beneficial to the community and more people need to be involved in marketing as well as managing the project. It was also agreed that we need to continue informing the community about the goals of the project so that we have a complete Community Buy-In by the end of the year. The benefits of the community Buy-in which I talked about two weeks ago are: Building trust, getting the word out, helping foster interest and ensuring the sustainability of the project.

A successful Buy-In strategy will lead to a sustainable community project.