He recently received a lot of press because of a talk he gave about “Founder Mode” (as chronicled by Paul Graham) in which founders need to be cautious about stepping too far away from the running of a business, especially when they elevate to a role beyond CEO. Having witnessed Brian’s relentless pursuit of success and his occasional frustration with professional management, I can see Brian’s POV but also know this adds some stress in being the manager under the microscope in this type of founder-led organization.
This brings me to my announcement earlier this week that I’m elevating to MEA’s Executive Chair while promoting our Chief Marketing & Technology Officer Derek Gehl to become CEO. Many of you have reached out congratulating me and some have inquired how I’m handling this emotionally. The good news is that I have a ton of confidence in Derek as an entrepreneur and a leader. He’s been a founder before as well as a CEO for a company he didn’t start, so this is not his first rodeo. Additionally, as I outlined in that blog post, I still have three very important roles in the company (beyond just being Exec Chair).
I loved the advice I got earlier this week from an MEA alum, Verne Harnish, who started the Young Entrepreneurs Organization (now known as EO) and is the founder and CEO of Scaling Up. Here’s an excerpt of what he wrote:
“My take — after much thought and digesting Paul Graham’s warnings – the key is for the founder to identify the ‘soul’ of the business and remain maniacal about that aspect – until you have someone in place as maniacal i.e. the soul of Apple is design – and Steve Jobs as iCEO remained maniacal about design, having lunch every day with Jony Ive and the design team. He delegated (or outsourced, like manufacturing) everything else to Tim Cook. The good news – Jony Ive was able to then carry the touch inside Apple after Steve’s passing – and that 10x’d Apple’s market cap. When Jony left in 2021, and knowing design to market cycles are roughly 36 months, I think that’s why Apple might be slipping in 2024. The key question – what is the soul of MEA? As Tom Peters taught me – you can outsource (delegate) everything but the soul.”
Great advice. With MEA, the soul of the business are the 3 C’s: culture, content, and community. Anyone who comes into contact with our MEA team is impressed with the can-do, positive Culture. The good news is we have a lot of people, including my co-founder Christine, nourishing the culture, but it’s also a topic I’ve written books about so I will continue to be investing in our culture.
Content is one of the big differentiators for MEA. Hospitality brands don’t have content. Most retreat centers are the facility, but not the facilitator. Few business leaders have a daily blog and seven books to their name. Once again, I have a co-founder Jeff whose fingerprints are all over our content and our Chief Content Officer Kari is a whiz-kid in taking our ideas (and her own) and turning them into unique content.
Lastly, when it comes to Community, we are a bit of a movement with 58 regional chapters around the world and I’m excited to be able to spend more time with our global community when I’m less involved in the mechanics of the business.
The good news is that Derek really values these intangible soulful qualities of the business and it’s what attracted him to MEA in the first place. But, Verne’s advice is really valuable. As your succession planning moves you away from the day-to-day, how are you still keeping your finger on the pulse of the valuable, intangible differentiators that make your business different?
-Chip