Optimize for Alignment, Not Control. Great Leaders Serve. And More Startup Mantras :-)

“A man can have as many diseases as he damn well pleases” — Hickam’s Dictum

Every profession has oral traditions you can’t find in textbooks. I was a doctor before I became an entrepreneur, and like every medic I have been steeped in the maxims and mantras of the craft. These memorable sayings are passed down through the generations, gettingabsorbed rather than studied, for example:

“Common things are common.”

“Put your finger in it, or you’ll put your foot in it.” (don’t skip the rectal exam)

“Don’t f**k with the pancreas.”

“All bleeding stops eventually.”

To anyone on the outside they can seem tautological or abstruse, but with context and experience you appreciate their wisdom and they become indispensable.

Craft Wisdom

As a founder I’ve often reflected on the parallels between the craft of medicine and business leadership. And over the years I’ve found myself collecting new sayings. For example:

• Optimise for alignment, not control.
• What’s the path to green?
• Great leaders serve.

Some are quotes from wise colleagues, others are my attempt to capture lessons learned. As I've curated my collection they've started to feel less like a mélange of founder tips, and more like mantras that signpost the way to deeper truth. They have become a cornerstone of my practice.

Below I’ll share 7 mantras for startups, accompanied by short commentaries.

Mantra Health Warnings
(i) Your milage may vary: items might seem trite or irrelevant depending on your context; 
(ii) They are mantras not commandments, you're meant to reflect on them; 
(iii) No mantra is an authoritative ‘last word’ on any theme or subject; 
(iv) For best results it’s a good idea to create and curate your own list — it is a craft after all.

My Startup Mantras 1-7

1. Ideas are easy, execution is hard.

The world is overflowing with good ideas. We come across them every day: in our work, with our friends, in the news. But there's a reason why humanity hasn't cured cancer, solved climate or colonised space - execution is what matters. Our responsibility isn't to dream up big ideas, it's to realise them. Successful companies understand this. They put their effort into the hard thing - building. Above all else, this requires focus.

2. Great companies are defined by incredible teams, not heroic individuals. Optimise for your team.

"Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate Competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare."

– Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

The team is the basic unit of computation in a company, it gets the work done. A single developer might be able to code an app, but success and scale nearly always depends on the collaboration and contribution of many others: product managers, researchers, designers, marketing, finance, etc.

Great companies optimise for teams at every level. They hire and promote people who are collaborative, they create cultures that are open and enabling, and when making decisions they consider the team. Great teams embrace responsibility, take ownership, and continuously push themselves to get better.

3. Great Leaders Serve

The archetype of the all-seeing, all-powerful executive is bullsh*t. Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are extraordinary, but they are too often venerated in a way that shows no understanding of their actual gifts, and total ignorance of their weaknesses.

The role of a leader isn't to wield power, but to distribute it. Effective leaders scale their time and impact by setting direction, empowering others, and making sure decisions are made at the right level - by the people with the right skills and context.

4. "What's the path to Green?"

Complex problems create uncertainty and inertia. Instead of struggling for the elusive grand solution, you should consider: "what is the path towards a better outcome"? i.e. from red through amber to green.

This framing can help you get moving in the right direction by inviting near-term pragmatic action rather than wistful big ideas. Once you identify the path you can start walking in the right direction. You won't know its exact route, and you may find new obstacles along the way, but you will move forward, step by step.

5. Your budget is your strategy expressed in numbers

This mantra paraphrases James O. McKinsey, who understood that an organisation's accounts are a powerful source of truth. Understanding how much money you make, how much capital you spend, and where you spend it, will tell you what kind of business you have, and where it's going. To understand your business, get a grip of your budget.

6. A company is a system -  not the sum of its parts, but the product of how those parts interact.

If Apple announces a new iPhone with a 10% faster CPU and a 20% better battery life, it doesn't follow that the new phone is better than the old model. In fact, if these changes increase the device's size, weight, charging time or price, the new phone may well be worse. An iPhone's appeal stems from the way in which its many parts work together to create a great experience - not in the performance of any one component.

This is the central tenet of systems thinking. Improving individual components / teams / departments in isolation rarely improves the system itself. If you want to strengthen your company, then you need to tune the entire system to the outcomes you want. Make your goals clear, focus on interface points and handoffs, and ensure all incentives are pointing in the same direction.

7. Optimise for alignment, not control

As teams scale communication becomes harder, coordination degrades and departments can slip into silos. A common response is for executives to create more processes, rules and meetings… but this causes even more damage. The way out of this swamp is to accept that scale has tradeoffs, and focus on alignment.

Featured image is HackerNoon Stable Diffusion Prompt of ‘What's the path to Green?’