Your Team Is Frustrated Because You're Not Facing Reality

Read Time: 3 minutes.

Autumn was in the air briefly last week in the Northeast.

Combined with back-to-school shopping and fantasy football drafts, perhaps no seasonal change is more evident than summer to fall.

Unfortunately, the seasons in business don't always announce themselves quite so clearly. And even when they are clear, we don't always love the current season.

And so we drift. We straddle.

This past week, I caught one of the CEOs I coach straddling.

It wasn't obvious at first. The primary symptom was fatigue teetering burnout.

But as we dug deeper for the root cause, we found that he was focusing more on a season of growth when reality called for dealing with the current conditions: existential risk.

This mismatch created a vicious cycle.

• His effort wasn't producing the impact because it was for the wrong season.

• The conditions in the current season were worsening because he wasn't dealing with them.

He was half in two games and losing both.

I wish I could say he was alone, but this happens constantly.

And even if your focus is in the right season, keeping your team there is an ongoing challenge.

Here's my cheat sheet for knowing which season you’re in and hitting the biggest risk head-on.

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Startup

Biggest Risk: Confusing Motion for Momentum

If your company or function is new, you have a blank canvas.
Unfortunately, you don't have a blank check.

You have to figure out two things asap:

1. Can you convince someone to pay you?

2. Can you deliver sufficient value when they do?

Is your team focused on snazzy designs or overcomplicated processes?

Chances are they're building for a season they'll never see.

Your only focus should be fit.

Existential Downturn

Biggest Risk: Moving too slowly

Cash is oxygen for business. You cannot survive long without it.

When an existential downturn hits your business, you need to act fast. And there's no secret to generating more cash:

• Drive up sales

• Drive down expenses

Chances are you need to start with expenses (if driving sales had an obvious solution, you'd already be doing it).

Be clear. Be compassionate. Be quick.

Recurring expenses keep recurring until you cut them.
And you can't survive a season unless you keep breathing.

Hyper Growth

Biggest Risk: Degrading Culture

Hypergrowth is a balancing act.

• You don't want to lose what made the growth start

• You don't want to walk around in pants that are too short

How do we allow the culture to evolve vs erode?

Successful scale-ups consistently did three things to get this right:

• Explicitly codified their culture

• Built supporting rituals

• Spread mythology

Align the behaviors, systems, and stories, and you won't just survive the season. You'll thrive.

Stable Operations

Biggest Risk: Distraction

Many of the best leaders I know see business as a game. It's a series of puzzles to solve that unlock new, more challenging levels.

But look at every successful business, and you'll see a second reality:

A willingness to solve the same problem over and over and over.

Operations is how you make puzzle-solving profitable. But how do you get your puzzle solvers to keep solving the same puzzle?

Typically, you don't. You're better off getting a team into place that loves the puzzle of operations.

Missing the moment of realignment is how you lose A-player talent.  

Reorganization

Biggest Risk: Rigidity

The one constant in business is change, and that change almost always appears in the org chart.

Some changes are small, like when a manager leaves or gets hired.
Some are dramatic, like when multiple companies merge.

But every change offers a choice:

• See it as a threat

• See it as an opportunity

The leaders who lose entrench in the past.
The leaders who win imagine the future.
And take the steps to build it.

What You Missed

Here’s what you missed from me on LinkedIn:

• Why Leaders Fail To Communicate Effectively

• The End of Command & Control Leadership

• Framework to Resolve Workplace Conflict

Here’s what you missed from me on X/Twitter:

• My 3 Management Non-Negotiables

• Questions To Regain Perspective Instantly

• Feedback is Fuel for Elite Teams

I’d also love to know what playbooks would be most helpful to you. Hit reply and tell me your biggest management challenge.

You’ll always remain anonymous unless you tell me otherwise.

Thank you for reading. Appreciate you!

Dave