Why every thriving business is a "start-around."

I started writing this article a week before hurricane Ian's hostile takeover of Southwest Florida. Having grown up in the small town of Matlacha (on Pine Island), every summer brought increasingly fierce hurricane worries. Somehow, and often just before predicted landfall, other hurricanes would veer north or south, avoiding Pine Island and the larger Fort Myers area. Up until a day before Ian slammed onto shore, it seemed a more northern landfall was imminent. Fortunately, my family living in the area evacuated, and everyone remained safe. However, their homes and many other homes and businesses remain in various states of collapse. Whether it's creating a temporary bridge so vital services may help people on the island or engaging new resources for cleanup, hurricane Ian did not demolish this small island town of 600 residents, it galvanized them. They are taking prior traditions from other hurricanes and new approaches required by hurricane Ian as they forge a new way of life. Returning to complete this article, I see many parallels between the hurricane aftermath and the "startaround" ethos.

I used to believe anything requiring “turning around” had fallen into a distinctive devolution, indicating lost leadership and complacent product innovation. Hired to lead three businesses through turnarounds, I am now convinced every healthy, consistently high-performing business behaves both like a turnaround AND a startup at the same time.

Every thriving business is a START-AROUND.?

Sustained high performance requires a core, mobilizing idea built upon curiosity, tenacity, and the emotional resilience of a start-up. At the same time, in order to sustain forward momentum when unexpected challenges surface, a start-up must also maintain healthy turnaround hygiene, keeping the team galvanized around the potential while often recalibrating key profitability and productivity drivers.

Consistent financial and operational performance in the post-Web2-Metaverse-Gen Z-overtaking- Millennials-as-majority-spenders world requires a new type of resiliency and vigilance. Why? Because it would be much easier to analyze historical data and apply current trend insights while maintaining the existing playbook established businesses create. A deliberate turnaround strategy stimulates a performance rhythm similar to a start-up. In addition, every business must continuously assess the central, catalyzing strategies and core truths of both the idea of the business and the performance demonstrated.?

You may be tempted to replace the word "turnaround" with the less fraught-sounding?"transformation." It's certainly sunnier seeming, conjuring images of break-out groups and subsequent report-outs. By common definition, turnaround implies an external catalyst for customer-facing overhaul, whereas transformation traditionally focuses on internal mechanisms, such as operating processes, structural economics, and culture.?

Unlike a true startup, the turnaround not only includes falling KPI indicators but often deeply held mythology about how, why, and who caused the decline. Ripe for blame, executives often shy away from getting to the bottom of simple-to-ask but not easy-to-answer questions. A classic startup remains too new for such mystery. A business, in the start-up stages, garners hope, maintaining an often propulsive pull forward toward presumed success. Or so the pitch deck raising funds professes, with the essential slide announcing the next?Uber/Amazon/Meta/Etsy and its?often optimistic and outsized TAM. A business deemed "a turnaround" harbors familiar markers as well, often including general malaise, lack of clarity and cohesion, and a sinking feeling amongst team members who stay on.

Examples where a start-around mindset may have altered the outcome, include the cautionary tales of Segway, Kodak, Toys R Us,?and the?American mall.?I have learned that approaching any business once it's launched as a constant start-around prioritizes five leadership principles and behaviors.

1. Remain both thematically broad and highly detailed.

Continuously frame the debate, assess the global landscape, and synthesize relevant trends into actionable conclusions- with speed and conviction. Stay inquisitive, warding off complacency- grasping the central themes of the business you have today while also considering the business you want to become. Ensure company operating mechanisms support detailed KPIs that are linked to individual performance incentives.??When executives proclaim they stay at the 100k or 30k foot level eschewing any grasp of details- I see a giant red flag waving tattered in the hubris-propelled wind. It's not a point of pride to be too busy or precious to grasp supporting details underlying the broad themes. Learn More:?"The Hard Things About Hard Things"- by Ben Horowitz

2.?Become comfortable with changing your mind.?

As Maria Popova says in her prolific blog The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings): "Cultivate that capacity for?“negative capability.” ?We live in a culture where one of the greatest social disgraces is not having an opinion, so we often form our “opinions” based on superficial impressions or the borrowed ideas of others, without investing the time and thought that cultivating true conviction necessitates. We then go around asserting these donned opinions and clinging to them as anchors to our own reality." Too many businesses fail because key leaders did not have the humility, emotional resilience, or appetite for change. Why, because it's usually much harder ( and less popular) than staying the course even when it's not working.? Learn More:?The Marginalian

3.?The ability?to establish prices is the greatest indicator of brand?health.

The best brands find ways to be universally relatable while also being individually attachable. While two people living in different countries may likely understand and appreciate the fundamental spirit of Nike, "every body is an athlete," not everyone engages with the Nike brand in the same way. Purchasing decisions meeting individual needs showcase the array of expressions and attachments to a brand's ethos. Becoming broadly relatable while also enabling individual expression creates powerful market power through pricing strategy. By providing ways for the global customer to claim their version of Nike (with robust personalization capabilities), less product substitution exists, reducing price elasticity in a fairly commoditized category ( athletic shoes and apparel).?Learn More:?Market Pricing Power

4.?Every brand (and organization) must have a spine. A lack of discipline kills creativity and innovation.

The spine creates an inner dominant, unconscious goal or itch that must be scratched, just like a well-drawn character in a story. Every person in the company must know what matters more than anything else in how goals are achieved. Identifying strategic anchors for the business ( 2-5 core values) creates freedom for creativity to flourish. Discipline provides freedom for creation.?Inspired by:??John Lasseter discusses storytelling .?Learn more about Strategic Anchors .

5.?Focus on Information vs. Data. Information is the reduction of uncertainty.?

Information is not data. Data is a collection of facts, whereas information applies proper context to the data for deciphering insights. Many companies in decline or surge blame the lack of data or quality of data when the issue isn't a lack of data, but a lack of effective data analysis as the necessary context doesn't exist or isn't valued. Dashboards are only useful when paired with established rubrics for turning increases and decreases into actionable information.?Learn More:?Data vs. Information

How to shift your thinking? Begin by infusing aspects of turnaround thinking into your startup from the beginning. Embed the capabilities often not seen as "needed" at the embryonic stage (changing direction while also remaining disciplined within the framework of strategic anchors). If you are in turnaround mode, infuse the playbook with curiosity and creativity (startup culture) to become the business you want to be while leading the one that exists today.