Every entrepreneur’s first priority should be the alignment of interests across the range of constituents required for success – partners, investors, customers, vendors, and employees. The best are ones quickest and most willing to do the realignment on a continuous basis these days, as the market changes, customer interests change, and you learn from experience.
Alignment means everyone has complementary objectives, and everyone is executing on their objectives. These things change so fast these days that the primary role of the entrepreneur as CEO is to be the Master of Realignment. My perspective on this role is outlined in the book “Rapid Realignment,” by the experts in this space, George Labovitz and Victor Rosansky.
The basic alignment framework of strategy, customers, people, and processes hasn’t changed, but the pace of technological, competitive, and social change has increased at an amazing rate. Most entrepreneurs recognize the need to pivot on a regular basis, but many forget that pivoting usually requires a realignment effort to get all the players back in sync.
At the highest level, startups must remember what Jim Barksdale of Netscape and FedEx famously said, “The main thing is to keep the Main Thing the main thing.” That means keeping all the players and all the organizations centered on what matters amid the crosscurrents of change. There are several key principles to follow along these lines:
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Move slow, fast, faster. The experts advise taking your time initially to listen, learn, and gather data. Then it’s time to speed up with a set of ambitious initiatives, and finally going all out to engage all the constituents in enduring change. False starts or obvious mis-steps will derail even the best pivots.
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Revisit your startup vision and values. Make sure the inspiration that launched your vision isn’t lost in the course of a pivot or market change. Of course, you may need to realign that vision to your team, your investors, and all the other players. Without that realignment, many may be left with confusion.
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Realign all elements of the plan. All too often I talk to startups which still don’t have a social media plan even though most of their customers now use social media as a key part of their buying decision. If you have had to pivot from the consumer market to enterprise customers, that requires new pricing models and new sales channels.
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Communicate, communicate, communicate. If you want effective team collaboration, you have to communicate effectively. When I was an executive, a common complaint was “Why didn’t someone tell me about the change?” A rule of thumb is that you need to put out an important message four times, in different ways, before everyone hears it.
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Change out team members as required. Entrepreneurs need to understand that realigning a team often means replacing members who are unable to change. It certainly is likely that you will have to get new strategic partners, and market to a new segment of customers. These changes may cost more than product changes.
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Update delivery systems and processes. Re-evaluate processes as they are today and set metrics to better represent the new sales, operational, and service needs. Then you have to face the reality that it’s time for new systems, software, or vendor contracts. Building a culture of continuous improvement is great for facilitating realignment.
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Pay particular attention to investor alignment. For inexperienced entrepreneurs, pivots and realignments often lead to some of the biggest disagreements and tension with investors, whether they be family, Angels, or VCs. These can easily result in CEO/Founder replacement or funding freezes if not handled openly and above-board.
