Founder Alignment is Essential to Company Alignment – Behind the Scenes

At times founders of companies will find themselves out of alignment. Just like with a tire alignment on your car’s suspension. You need to have regular founder alignment conversations. Sometimes it is about strategy forward. Founder alignment can also be about the deeper issues that plague company growth. Over the years, I have facilitated many conversations with founders to keep founder alignment in check. In today’s behind the scenes, we look at what often gets in the way of founder alignment.

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Behind the Scenes: The Transcript

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Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

Today, we talk about founder alignment. Now you have to take your car in for alignment every once in a while, right? The tires need to be aligned to the suspension of the car to be able to ride smoothly, to ride efficiently. And this has to be done on a regular basis. Now, founder alignment is a very similar process.

You want to make sure that you and your co-founders are on the same page. Maybe it’s the CEO and the COO, but you want to make sure that the key individuals inside of the organization are truly in alignment. There’s a few different areas of alignment that we’re going to talk about today, but I’ve been talking to a lot of my clients about, you know, the issues that are coming up because they are out of alignment.

One of those is about the time commitment to be able to perform the jobs that they need to do. The roles that they’re performing that time commitment is not just the work that needs to be done. It’s also about their home life, their family life, their life outside of that, maybe they’ve got other issues like aging, parents, kids, all of those things have to be understood together.

You want to have a deep alignment around that type of conversation around time. You also want to have a deep alignment around strategies, how we’re moving forward. What does that mean? As we grow the business? What is the right path? Are we acquiring people or are we acquiring companies? Are we hiring the right people?

Whatever it may be, we want to make sure our strategy is very much in alignment. You also want to make sure that you have an alignment across energy. Energy levels within the company can really make or break a company. The energy levels that. You know, people are putting a lot of negative energy into an organization, can kill the productivity and the impact and retention across the workforce.

You also want to be an alignment around people and culture, those things. That means you want to make sure that we’re doing the right things to support our people, take care of them, whether they need coaching or training, whether they need, uh, other things that will allow them to create the space and in their environment to perform at their best.

Now there’s other areas of alignment, but those are the four big ones, right? It’s the time. It’s the strategy. It’s the energy. And it’s also the culture. I remember before I became a coach, I worked in an organization where the founders weren’t quite in alignment. In fact, there was a little bickering going on and a little bit of blaming that is dangerous to an organization.

I say all this to you because I want to make sure that you aren’t going down that path, that you are doing regular checkups. I facilitate a lot of these conversations with founders to allow them to talk about these four issues and anything else that is necessary for them to get alignment. And when they do, they really do get a better understanding of each other.

And they come out of that with a much fresher perspective of what does it take for us to move this business forward? How do we create a space where we love to come. And they’re able to say the things that they aren’t normally allowed to say. And I know they’re allowed to say these things, but they just don’t say them.

And they’re able to say that comfortably with me facilitating that conversation. I’m not saying you need to hire me to do this, but you need to do this on a regular basis, ideally with a third party so that you can have someone probe into it. Things aren’t just left there and you can actually meditate a little bit, but also help people see other perspectives through the skills that they have through facilitation or coaching.

Founder alignment is such an important piece to the overall success of a company. You want to make sure that these things are happening on that regular basis. Like I talked about. So why am I talking about this? Will I see this as a problem? And I want to make sure you understand that it’s something that you want to have open communication with your founder.

You might go to them today and say, Hey, why don’t we talk about your home life a little bit more, and I want to figure out what’s going on there. I’d love to share with you what’s going on in my life. And those is a good start to that conversation because it will allow you to really connect with each other and talk about things other than just, how are we going to sell more?

How are we going to make more money? Talk about the time, talk about energy, talk about people, and talking about the strategy. Moving forward. Maybe not all in one conversation, but that can help. I want you to be the leader that your team deserves. I want you to be the best founders. If you’re listening to this with your co-founder, one thing you can do is if they haven’t listened to this episode, you might want to send it to them.

And so that they can actually let it process for a little bit. And then you guys get together and have some conversations around those four areas and see if there’s something else where you’re out of alignment. You want to make sure you’re doing this. On a regular basis so that you can be stronger leaders and stronger founders together.

My job is to help you do that. I work with a lot of fast-growth companies. You don’t have to be on the Inc 5,000, but many of my clients are. And I want you to know that if you want to be an extraordinary leader if you think about what would it take for you to be the leader that your team craves and all you have to do is call me.

Set up a call with me, I should say, just go to genehammett.com and schedule your call. We’ll talk about your business. We’ll talk about your leadership, your people, your strategy, your alignment with your co-founder. We can talk about anything you want to, to help you move forward. My job is to help you be that leader.

Just go to genehammett.com and schedule your call today. When you think about growth and you think about leadership, think of growth, think tank as always lead with courage.

Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

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