Why Do So Many Founders Fail?

Do you suffer from Founder’s Syndrome?

What is Founder’s Syndrome? Wikipedia describes it as: a popular term for a difficulty faced by organizations where one or more founders maintain disproportionate power and influence following the effective initial establishment of the project, leading to a wide range of problems for both the

organization and those involved in it.

Sound familiar? You recognize the characteristics but never knew it had a name. The problem is, initially and fundamentally, founders are good people, with really good intentions. They start nonprofits, NGOs, associations with extraordinary missions, clear purpose, and lofty goals. And then, somewhere along the way, they lose their way. Or, to put it more accurately, it becomes the old adage “their way or the highway”. And slowly, imperceptibly, almost glacially, things begin to go wrong.

Innovation that could lead to autonomous and independent workflow, are shot down or ignored because creating the repeatable process to implement them threatens the founder with the loss of control. With no systems, no processes and certainly no growth, apathy and boredom set in. The organization’s frontline, who handle fundraising, marketing, and/or communication begin to realize their professional development will be stifled if they remain. Effective board members and talented employees disappear, leaving only “the unimaginative”, “the mired”, and the “lost lambs” to remain.

Donors vanish, revenue decreases, progress comes to a standstill, and with fewer and fewer resources to continue the mission, the organization begins to shrink and ultimately die.

How do you stop the downward spiral? The inevitable failure?

Some help for Founder’s Syndrome is found in the quote from the American psychologist Nathaniel Branden, “the first step toward change is AWARENESS. The second, ACCEPTANCE”. The next steps are the most frightening to the Founder: intervention, examination, disruption, with the end result being, TRANSFORMATION.

The transformative process begins with the strategic plan and implementation process, with board development, adherence to term limits, and most important of all, succession planning. This releases the founder from the burden and misconception that he/she is the sole resource and generator, holding total and complete responsibility and control of the entity.

This uncomfortable process of transformation is what can lead to sustainable growth and maturity of the organization. As with the development of a child, the organization is born; begins (as an infant) with total dependence on the founder, then inter-dependence (adolescence) with its board, staff and strategic partners, lastly blossoming into a robust, healthy, (adult) organization, fully formed, independent and autonomous of the founder. This is, this must be, inexorably, the organization’s evolutionary cycle.