In his book, The Founder’s Dilemma, best-selling author and Harvard Business School professor Noam Wasserman claims that 65% of high-potential startups fail due to conflict among co-founders. A daunting statistic to be sure, but it comes as little surprise to anyone who has ever tried to start a business.
It’s been said that the best time in your business is before you start building – when it’s all blue skies and big dreams. As soon as the rubber meets the road, however, you’re in for some conflict. While the cause of that conflict can be as varied and unique as the co-founders, the most simple explanation is that in the founding venture, you’re trying to bring two or more sets of ideals, values, perspectives, motivations, and a dozen other intangible, immeasurable qualities and merge them as one.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that you are immune to the perils of startup life just because you like your co-founder or that during the brainstorming phase, you feel completely on the same page. There’s still zero chance that you’resus at nunc efficitur malesuada. Maecenas in sem vel tortor consectetur ultricies. In hac habitasse platea dictumst.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that you are immune to the perils of startup life just because you like your co-founder or that during the brainstorming phase, you feel completely on the same page. There’s still zero chance that you’re completely aligned across all the critical aspects of the business. How could you be since you’re each bringing your own uniqueness to the startup? Those differences, no matter how slight the misalignment, are potential problems spots as you grow.
So if misalignment is the problem, then alignment must be the solution. Alignment, however simple it may sound, is one of those buzzwords a high-priced consultant might toss around without providing a clear definition or a path to attain it.
In the rest of this article, we’ll define alignment as a process and zero in on the benefits of having an aligned team.
