This past week I had the pleasure of dining with some great friends of mine: Brian Robertson, CEO of Ternary Software and father of Holacracy, Tom Thomison, CEO of Holacracy One, and my coach Jim Vollett. It was a transformative evening for me as we discussed not only the recent staffing challenges here at The Chief Good but also my daughter’s upcoming wedding next Sunday.

I’ve often said that building a business is a lot like becoming a parent, and in talking to Brian I found myself even more intrigued by this idea. Specifically, might a business be thought of as a single group consciousness that becomes its own unique entity by combining the traits of its founders? Let’s play with that idea.

Consider that a business is born of its parents, the founders. It is given the values of its parents and will inherently contain many of their mannerisms. For example, a new entity spawned from a bureaucratic culture will likely display its genetic heritage by having stringent rules and thick operations manuals that are heavy on process. Conversely, something formed by young movers and shakers might exhibit much looser and fast paced achievement based traits. Traits might also combine in unexpected ways, producing organizations that are proactive and innovative in some areas, while slower and more reactive in others.

Of course there is also the fact that organizations, like children, aren’t exclusively a product of their genetics (nature) but also of their environment and upbringing (nurture). It is the parent’s primary responsibility to keep the little ones alive and to prepare them for life in this world. What has been birthed will develop in stages and the child (conception/research) will become a teenager (development) before it moves into the phases of adulthood (stability/growth/wealth). Nurturing at each stage takes different skills. The techniques that worked in the beginning often stop working, become inappropriate, and can even cause damage that will take years to fully heal. Unhealthy relationships between the parent and the child can form (founder’s syndrome) or even worse, death (bankruptcy) may result from parents trying to raise the child without the proper resources or skills.

This all goes to suggest that before starting a venture really consider who you are getting in bed with. Will they make good parents? What traits will they pass along to the next generation? Will they stick around through thick and thin? Perhaps it might be worth dating around a bit more to find someone that truly embodies the qualities you want to see reflected in your new creation. Do your co-creators have the balance of feminine nurturing qualities and masculine direction to help grow a healthy business? Can they make it through the sleepless nights and weighty responsibility? Personally, I love being a parent and nothing in my life has brought me such bliss. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I’m so interested in birthing new businesses! Good luck with your children!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 21st, 2007 at 1:48 pm and is filed under conscious capitalism, parenting, starting a business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.