Startup Psychology: Transformations That Not All Will Survive
The average biography of a successful entrepreneur will start something like this: one or a couple of enthusiastic friends gathered in a cafe, garage, at home, in a small office and decided to create a new product, open a new business. This is followed by the tragic story of overcoming, hardship and adversity; insanely exciting search history of the first customers. There will definitely be an episode of almost complete collapse and frustration. All these horrors did not demotivate the team, but rather allowed to mobilize all internal resources, collect some meager remnants of financial resources, take a risk, and now, when there is almost no hope left - about a miracle, a client appeared! It was possible to close a big deal, the dense work began, which, of course, was very successful and productive, otherwise how would we know about this success story. Subsequently, the company successfully attracted investors, placed its shares on the stock exchange, released new products, as in a fairy tale: "and they lived happily ever after and died on the same day."
According to the laws of drama, there are several options for the development of the storyline. The easiest option is a plot with one goal, where the main character with the development of the plot fights with various antiheroes and overcomes obstacles: “the whole life is a struggle,” the main aspiration and goal, “efforts and work will grind everything”. A classic example of such a plot can be found in the cartoon “Finding Nemo,” or in many Bondiade series. As a rule, successful start-ups stories are not embedded in this dramatic framework. Most often, the fathers of the inspirers began with one idea, but in the course of the work it turned out that the original goal was wrong; Yes, and the original concept that a group of initiating heroes jointly overcome all dangers, shoulder to shoulder, back to back, as a support for each other, can cause a crack. At some point it becomes difficult to understand which of the founders is a hero, and who is a villain; whose efforts promote the company, and someone else’s, maybe unconscious actions, harm the company and cause it to develop.
A standard startup develops along a complex storyline. The original goals are likely to turn out to be false, or at least be seriously revised. Not all emerging new faces will be good characters, and some of the main characters may suddenly turn out to be anti-heroes. The plot twists, the intrigue grows, but then a turning point occurs, everything starts to clear up, a new picture of the world is drawn, a new goal becomes apparent and the hero moves to a new peak. A classic example is Rocky's film, where the main character, played by Sylvester Stallone, is desperately training, but cannot get into the ring at all until the case has helped him. The rival of the famous boxer Appolo breaks his arm and can not enter the ring. Appolo invites Rocky to a fight in the hope of a beautiful and exciting match. There is a turning point, the main character changes its original goal, in this case from a duel to a show, and agrees. Then the main character, Rocky, is actively training, but he didn’t manage to win, but he managed to have a great fight and motivate these teenagers. In the same way, innovators have to change at some point the original goal, quickly transform and continue to strive for a new goal with even greater efforts. It is enough for the screenwriter to lead the heroes through one crisis and rethinking, after which they will achieve a new goal with heroic efforts, but in real life everything is a little more complicated.
The founding fathers can successfully survive one crisis, rethink their goals and find reserves for new inspiration to continue the battle, but this will be only the beginning. Robert Quinn and Kim Cameron in the late 80s proposed a theory of the organization's life cycle. Each company passes on its way several critical stages, and how well the company is able to adapt, overcome them - depends on the success and longevity of the company. Subsequently, Itzhak Adizes popularized this theory, clarified and expanded, described what roles and competencies are required at each stage.
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Harvard Business School professor Larry Greiner, at the end of 200 years, proposed the concept of the organization's life cycle. According to this theory, the organization evolves evolutionarily, but with time it loses pace, serious transformations begin, the next rebel manager heads the revolutionary transformations, but this does not end there and everything repeats by the beginning of the next stage.
According to Greiner's theory, the company, in its development at the next stage, is actually reborn. For a dramatic storyline, one complete transformation and reversal by 180 degrees is usually quite enough, but, unfortunately, in real life such “dramatic turns” will be no less than five or more than enough to not manage the control and go the distance. Most often, such falling into the “growth trap” causes so serious financial and psychological damage that our recent heroes, entrepreneurs, forever pledge themselves not to be engaged in business anymore.
If we continue to draw a parallel between the development of a young startup and the classics of drama, then the best comparison, probably, will be the work of Lewis Carroll “Alice in Wonderland”. A young entrepreneur is faced with a situation of complete uncertainty. Everything around is changing so quickly that it is very difficult to find some logic in this. At some point, the company may grope for some niche and begin to grow rapidly, as Alice tried another item, but then suddenly diminish rapidly. The hardest thing is that all these changes can be so rapid that there is no time to comprehend them, draw any conclusions and find patterns. The main criterion for success is speed, Carroll has a relevant statement in the book: “You need to run as fast as you need to stay in place, but to get somewhere, you must run at least twice as fast!”. In addition, one must be able to very quickly reassess the picture of the world: “One cannot believe in the impossible! “You just have little experience,” said the Queen. ” It is one thing to watch such a plot in a movie, another to maintain such a pace for quite a long time.
Novice entrepreneurs are taking some action to assess their chances in the new market and thereby change it. A new innovative market will be formed only after the tester evaluates it. Practical classics of quantum uncertainty, and if we add elements of quantum entanglement to this, then the situation becomes simply frighteningly uncertain. To exist in a constant mode of uncertainty for a long time is impossible. Everything around is changing so quickly, you need to constantly run twice as fast, and it’s not clear where you need to run, what is the final goal, where is the finish and is it there. We are used to living in the material world, our mind, our psyche is set to look for patterns that allow us to clarify the picture of the world, stabilize it, achieve the status quo. It turns out such a dichotomy. We run as fast as possible in order to stop; find some certainty, achieve stability, status quo.
If you look at the graph of the life cycle, then after the heyday, a period of stability comes, that desirable certainty and status quo. In the Greiner model, the plateau should begin after a crisis of delegation of control, at the stages of coordination and collaboration. How many successful entrepreneurs reach this stage? The main problem is that the intolerance of existence in conditions of uncertainty, and the first who begins to slow down the development of the company are the founders themselves. The desire to feel solid ground under their feet after a long swim becomes almost a passion. If the picture of the world changes all the time, then you can create your own ideal world in your imagination. In business, this is called creating a strategy, everything becomes clear, how and by whom we see ourselves, what will happen to us in a year, in five, where the market will develop, etc. Everything that is missing in real life can be drawn in corporate strategy. Later, relying on this imaginary world will be an attempt to build a company, a product development strategy. But, the ideal world of strategies, it is better to say fantasies, is sharply broken about a sudden opportunity, like Rocky, who was invited not to fight, but, in fact, to the show. Only this time, our fighter-entrepreneur will gracefully dodge the opportunity, as it violates the integrity of his new-found strategy.
In addition to the dynamic environment, which the company is already resisting, and not adapting, there is also an increase in internal problems. Successful experience led to the rapid growth of the company, but the rapid growth pulled the problem of management efficiency. In order to achieve controllability of internal processes, employees with work experience from leaders in this market are massively lured into the company. Successful managers of large companies, by their nature, are very different from the culture of innovators. In order to make a career in a large company, you need to develop some other skills in yourself. We must try to show as little initiative as possible, if necessary, it is better to join a successful team and share their success with them. You need to be able to fix your zone of responsibility and separate the failures of others from your success. In fact, a good manager of a large company is a bureaucrat, unlike an enthusiastic and aspiring entrepreneur, a bureaucrat does not hover in the clouds, he is more pragmatic, he is concerned mainly with his own success. In his experience, the young bureaucrat learned a long time ago that he cannot influence the overall success of the company, but the ability to competently delineate his borders and a zone of responsibility can do a good job. When such an experienced manager, who worked in the most successful companies of this market, enters a fast-growing company, he, unfortunately, does not bring with him a piece of success of his previous employer, since the company was successful in many ways before it and will be after. The best that such an employee can bring with them are the skills of building certainty, creating the appearance of controllability and controllability, and begins to realize all this, to the great joy of the founding fathers, diligently swamping a once rapidly developing company.
Thus, it turns out that the company has lost its flexibility, was unable to pass the next control point, and skipped several stages to the extinction phase; the charter to constantly run and adapt began to actively resist change, shut down and bureaucratize. Some innovative companies find such a rich gold mine that it allows them to make and correct a few mistakes in their path. Others, on the contrary, are less lucky and the groped niche is so narrow that the slightest mistake leads to the inevitable death of the company. The fertility of the groped market may affect the duration of the startup, but the main plot twist is that the main villain who actually kills the company will eventually be the founder himself or one of the founding fathers. On the other hand, a good company differs from a single star by the fact that it is a coordinated work of a group of people. A good team can be compared with a column of cyclists in a competition, when the lead is exhausted, he moves inside the column and allows the new leader to seize the initiative, which, in turn, when it is exhausted, changes places with the next.
According to the laws of drama, there are several options for the development of the storyline. The easiest option is a plot with one goal, where the main character with the development of the plot fights with various antiheroes and overcomes obstacles: “the whole life is a struggle,” the main aspiration and goal, “efforts and work will grind everything”. A classic example of such a plot can be found in the cartoon “Finding Nemo,” or in many Bondiade series. As a rule, successful start-ups stories are not embedded in this dramatic framework. Most often, the fathers of the inspirers began with one idea, but in the course of the work it turned out that the original goal was wrong; Yes, and the original concept that a group of initiating heroes jointly overcome all dangers, shoulder to shoulder, back to back, as a support for each other, can cause a crack. At some point it becomes difficult to understand which of the founders is a hero, and who is a villain; whose efforts promote the company, and someone else’s, maybe unconscious actions, harm the company and cause it to develop.
A standard startup develops along a complex storyline. The original goals are likely to turn out to be false, or at least be seriously revised. Not all emerging new faces will be good characters, and some of the main characters may suddenly turn out to be anti-heroes. The plot twists, the intrigue grows, but then a turning point occurs, everything starts to clear up, a new picture of the world is drawn, a new goal becomes apparent and the hero moves to a new peak. A classic example is Rocky's film, where the main character, played by Sylvester Stallone, is desperately training, but cannot get into the ring at all until the case has helped him. The rival of the famous boxer Appolo breaks his arm and can not enter the ring. Appolo invites Rocky to a fight in the hope of a beautiful and exciting match. There is a turning point, the main character changes its original goal, in this case from a duel to a show, and agrees. Then the main character, Rocky, is actively training, but he didn’t manage to win, but he managed to have a great fight and motivate these teenagers. In the same way, innovators have to change at some point the original goal, quickly transform and continue to strive for a new goal with even greater efforts. It is enough for the screenwriter to lead the heroes through one crisis and rethinking, after which they will achieve a new goal with heroic efforts, but in real life everything is a little more complicated.
The founding fathers can successfully survive one crisis, rethink their goals and find reserves for new inspiration to continue the battle, but this will be only the beginning. Robert Quinn and Kim Cameron in the late 80s proposed a theory of the organization's life cycle. Each company passes on its way several critical stages, and how well the company is able to adapt, overcome them - depends on the success and longevity of the company. Subsequently, Itzhak Adizes popularized this theory, clarified and expanded, described what roles and competencies are required at each stage.
')
Harvard Business School professor Larry Greiner, at the end of 200 years, proposed the concept of the organization's life cycle. According to this theory, the organization evolves evolutionarily, but with time it loses pace, serious transformations begin, the next rebel manager heads the revolutionary transformations, but this does not end there and everything repeats by the beginning of the next stage.
According to Greiner's theory, the company, in its development at the next stage, is actually reborn. For a dramatic storyline, one complete transformation and reversal by 180 degrees is usually quite enough, but, unfortunately, in real life such “dramatic turns” will be no less than five or more than enough to not manage the control and go the distance. Most often, such falling into the “growth trap” causes so serious financial and psychological damage that our recent heroes, entrepreneurs, forever pledge themselves not to be engaged in business anymore.
If we continue to draw a parallel between the development of a young startup and the classics of drama, then the best comparison, probably, will be the work of Lewis Carroll “Alice in Wonderland”. A young entrepreneur is faced with a situation of complete uncertainty. Everything around is changing so quickly that it is very difficult to find some logic in this. At some point, the company may grope for some niche and begin to grow rapidly, as Alice tried another item, but then suddenly diminish rapidly. The hardest thing is that all these changes can be so rapid that there is no time to comprehend them, draw any conclusions and find patterns. The main criterion for success is speed, Carroll has a relevant statement in the book: “You need to run as fast as you need to stay in place, but to get somewhere, you must run at least twice as fast!”. In addition, one must be able to very quickly reassess the picture of the world: “One cannot believe in the impossible! “You just have little experience,” said the Queen. ” It is one thing to watch such a plot in a movie, another to maintain such a pace for quite a long time.
Novice entrepreneurs are taking some action to assess their chances in the new market and thereby change it. A new innovative market will be formed only after the tester evaluates it. Practical classics of quantum uncertainty, and if we add elements of quantum entanglement to this, then the situation becomes simply frighteningly uncertain. To exist in a constant mode of uncertainty for a long time is impossible. Everything around is changing so quickly, you need to constantly run twice as fast, and it’s not clear where you need to run, what is the final goal, where is the finish and is it there. We are used to living in the material world, our mind, our psyche is set to look for patterns that allow us to clarify the picture of the world, stabilize it, achieve the status quo. It turns out such a dichotomy. We run as fast as possible in order to stop; find some certainty, achieve stability, status quo.
If you look at the graph of the life cycle, then after the heyday, a period of stability comes, that desirable certainty and status quo. In the Greiner model, the plateau should begin after a crisis of delegation of control, at the stages of coordination and collaboration. How many successful entrepreneurs reach this stage? The main problem is that the intolerance of existence in conditions of uncertainty, and the first who begins to slow down the development of the company are the founders themselves. The desire to feel solid ground under their feet after a long swim becomes almost a passion. If the picture of the world changes all the time, then you can create your own ideal world in your imagination. In business, this is called creating a strategy, everything becomes clear, how and by whom we see ourselves, what will happen to us in a year, in five, where the market will develop, etc. Everything that is missing in real life can be drawn in corporate strategy. Later, relying on this imaginary world will be an attempt to build a company, a product development strategy. But, the ideal world of strategies, it is better to say fantasies, is sharply broken about a sudden opportunity, like Rocky, who was invited not to fight, but, in fact, to the show. Only this time, our fighter-entrepreneur will gracefully dodge the opportunity, as it violates the integrity of his new-found strategy.
In addition to the dynamic environment, which the company is already resisting, and not adapting, there is also an increase in internal problems. Successful experience led to the rapid growth of the company, but the rapid growth pulled the problem of management efficiency. In order to achieve controllability of internal processes, employees with work experience from leaders in this market are massively lured into the company. Successful managers of large companies, by their nature, are very different from the culture of innovators. In order to make a career in a large company, you need to develop some other skills in yourself. We must try to show as little initiative as possible, if necessary, it is better to join a successful team and share their success with them. You need to be able to fix your zone of responsibility and separate the failures of others from your success. In fact, a good manager of a large company is a bureaucrat, unlike an enthusiastic and aspiring entrepreneur, a bureaucrat does not hover in the clouds, he is more pragmatic, he is concerned mainly with his own success. In his experience, the young bureaucrat learned a long time ago that he cannot influence the overall success of the company, but the ability to competently delineate his borders and a zone of responsibility can do a good job. When such an experienced manager, who worked in the most successful companies of this market, enters a fast-growing company, he, unfortunately, does not bring with him a piece of success of his previous employer, since the company was successful in many ways before it and will be after. The best that such an employee can bring with them are the skills of building certainty, creating the appearance of controllability and controllability, and begins to realize all this, to the great joy of the founding fathers, diligently swamping a once rapidly developing company.
Thus, it turns out that the company has lost its flexibility, was unable to pass the next control point, and skipped several stages to the extinction phase; the charter to constantly run and adapt began to actively resist change, shut down and bureaucratize. Some innovative companies find such a rich gold mine that it allows them to make and correct a few mistakes in their path. Others, on the contrary, are less lucky and the groped niche is so narrow that the slightest mistake leads to the inevitable death of the company. The fertility of the groped market may affect the duration of the startup, but the main plot twist is that the main villain who actually kills the company will eventually be the founder himself or one of the founding fathers. On the other hand, a good company differs from a single star by the fact that it is a coordinated work of a group of people. A good team can be compared with a column of cyclists in a competition, when the lead is exhausted, he moves inside the column and allows the new leader to seize the initiative, which, in turn, when it is exhausted, changes places with the next.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/449094/
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