A founder who knew he was the constraint

The situation

The company had grown from forty to two hundred and forty people in three years. The founder had built it by being in everything, deciding quickly, and holding the quality bar personally — all of which had worked, and none of which now scaled.

The executive team had grown around him without ever being given real authority. Two senior hires had left inside a year, both citing, in exit conversations, a version of the same thing.

The work

The map

A deliberately unflattering audit of a fortnight of his calendar and decisions: what only he could do, what he was doing anyway, and what the next two hires would absorb if he let them. Eleven per cent of his decisions were in the first category.

The board work

One observed board meeting and a rebuild of how he opened it. He had been reporting comprehensively and framing nothing, which the board experienced as a founder who did not have a view.

The team, in parallel

Six months of team coaching for the executive group, including two observed meetings and a written decision-rights map. The first version of that map was, in his words, "the most uncomfortable document we have ever produced".

Where it ended

• Pricing exceptions moved to the commercial lead with a published threshold, in month two, and stayed there.
• The executive team's standing meeting halved in length and gained a decision log.
• He describes the engagement as "nine months of being told a thing I already knew, until I did something about it", which is roughly what good coaching is.

I had two portfolio founders in the same position that year. One did this work. The retention difference in their senior teams was stark enough that we now offer it at Series C as a matter of course.
Partner at the lead institutional investor