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The Power of Integration

This entry is certainly not about differential equations.  I remember my last test in differential equations in engineering school.   It was one rather large question.  It looked like something that Captain Nemo was battling in the movie “20,000 leagues under the sea”.  It was big, it was ugly and it had tentacles coming out of it.  Like the good captain, I slugged through that beast to fight another day but not without it taking its toll on me and leaving a lasting impression on what the word integration meant……….

Well, I can’t believe that I’d be talking about integration again but I am going to write a little about this concept that I am fascinated with.  This concept applies directly to people and it’s really about reaching potential in one’s life but it applies very directly to a high performing workplace.   It’s called the Path to Integration.

There is an excellent book called Personality Types by Donald Riso.  It essentially lays out the detail of a psychology concept called the Enneagram.   The Enneagram is a 9 sided shape that is symbolic of the 9 personality types that exist among us.

While I couldn’t possibly do justice to the concept in my Blog’s short space, I’ll basically lay out the principles:

• Through our genetics and early socialization, we are pre-disposed to have a particular personality profile.
• This tends to lead us to life choices particularly work roles that we have aptitude for.
• These personality types come with unique strengths but will also be attached to unique weaknesses
• As we progress through life, we continually move back and forth through points of disintegration (the negative) and points of integration (the positive).
• When we are in our top level of integration, we are capable of truly amazing impacts with our work, with people, and with our life. 

So how does this apply to a startup? 

Well, what’s truly amazing is that a good healthy startup has almost every personality profile in a specific functional role.  In other words your personality profile predisposes you to be good at something.  Have you ever had that problem, where you try and take the smart guy or gal and put them into a new role because you are missing someone?  Smart folks can make it work for awhile but if their personality profile doesn’t get energy from the work, it soon drains them.  Of course, there are different folks, that are capable of moving from role to role around the organization but they may be looking for different types of energy from the role.  For example, by placing a great leader who is not creative in the head of marketing role, you may have a well run department but they will most likely not be one who invents or steers the innovative marketing campaign.  They get energy from the leadership aspects and that’s where they will most likely focus and nurture their attention.    

So where does integration come in? 

So the concept of integration simply states that people are in a high performance spot where they believe in what they are doing, they are in alignment of service to the cause and there is absence/minimization of self aggrandizement in why they are doing it.

This is not to say that a startup can’t be successful without being fully integrated.  But early businesses tend to have the key folks in the organization in the right roles for their personality, and have great alignment or great belief in the cause.

When this happens, their natural talents they have take over and work starts to become easier and momentum continues to build. 

While there are startups that do well sometimes when there is large amount of self aggrandizement as a value, people reach integration inside organizations more when they believe their efforts have an honorable purpose.  Self Aggrandizement is typically a temporary feeling than a long lasting foundational value.   .   

Getting to the integration point is the challenge…..my belief is that it starts at the top with the leader focused on how the business serves its customers. 

It then follows with looking for hires that are talented but will not compromise the organization’s potential for reaching a high integration state.  The biggest mistakes I have made in hiring in previous positions have been hiring people that are extremely talented but have a history of disintegrating or going to the more negative side of their personality type no matter what the values of the organization.  There is a high level of correlation with insecurities manifesting themselves in these individuals.  There are also people who are not the right fit because business causes are not a priority for them at all.  These folks are few and far between but they tend to look at business endeavors as something they have to do rather than something they want to do.  

After you start with hires with greater potential for integration, an organization should work to create a value system that helps people understand the true value of the cause.  And then, of course, to work at rewarding and nurturing people for the getting to their highest level of performance which is what we call the Power of Integration.   

The 3 Culprits

So I have been asked a few times;  What's the most important thing to do for a startup to be successful? 

It's a great question and there are probably a lot more folks out there better suited than myself to answer it.  However, in this great country of ours, I guess we all get an opinion.   

I remember being back at business school and deciding to go over to the MIT Campus.  They had an entrepreneur presentation back in the mid 90's which was more rare than you could imagine.

The speech concluded with a statement that all things being equal, 3 things typically kill startups (the 3 Culprits):

* Ego Founder

* Running out of Cash

* Lack of Focus 

It's not like these items aren't interrelated.  We can talk about their relationships to each other for a few paragraphs but if you look at them again there is a nice clustering effect of subordinate issues that allows them to remain distinct units.   So let's explore them: 

Ego Founder: 

As I peer around the valley and look at different companies,  I see this problem happen continuously.  It's kind of a blessing/curse dilemma with regards to founders.   It's that same passion, single minded vision and emotional attachment that drives an entrepreneur to take great risks and to get an organization going that can also blind them with regards to seeding control/authority when the time is right.  There is a relationship between the degree of ego, the experience of the founder, and the stage of an organization that has a big impact on whether a company will get over a critical hurdle. Many founders continue to hang on and desire so much to be right about things that the potential for an organization is many times inhibited if it can not be addressed.   

Running out of Cash: 

This seems pretty straightforward as we all know "Cash is King".  One of the keys is to be mindful of your expenses early on...every little bit.   An organization with loose controls early on will be a bigger organization with loose controls later.  CEO's that don't create processes early on to protect the cheese will be organizations that need more cash faster than required plain and simple.  The other piece is to be mindful to your funding environment.  Be judicious of what you raise but don't be greedy. So many companies obsess about the amount of ownership they are giving up but the mantra holds true "If you can raise it, raise it".  And of course, the last part of this is ensuring that you are spending it on the strategic things.  Focus on things that matter like great people who build great stuff which roles into the next culprit...

Lack of Focus: 

In my mind, this is the most important thing to protect against.  Small companies are by definition small with limited personnel.  Most of the time we compete against rather larger firms.  Just a few great people with direction and purpose paddling together in unison can do some amazing stuff together.  But getting focused takes work. A few steps every startup organization should practice

* Know your customer

* Define what you want to be to them

* Prioritize like crazy the most important things you will do   

* Set Deadlines and Goals to those priorities

* Remind People Continuously    

* Repeat

Of course, this isn't to say you shouldn't try new things or be creative.  That's the essence of a startup but have context in mind of why you are doing it.  It also doesn't mean that startups won't change business models at some point, almost all do.  From my perspective, the startups that have a chance, take a stance and move methodically and in some focused ordered towards the goal until they have to change (which shouldn't be very often). 

The middle ground is not a fun place to be.  Even Ralph Macchio figured it out....      

Remember in the Karate Kid, Mr. Miagi teaches Daniel-san:  "Man walks down the right side street, OK and then Man walks down left side of street, OK  but then Man walks down the middle... squashed... Just like Grape"

Don't get squashed like a grape......