Can you change people?
As founders and CEOs, changing things is what we do. We set a direction, we create, acquire and allocate the resources needed to move in that direction, and we steer the machine towards the desired destination. We’re typically pretty good at it. Effective. Confident that we can do it.
This means we often see things in terms of potential. We think about things in terms of what they COULD be. What WE will make them.
This is a good thing. It’s a creative mindset. It’s a builder’s mindset.
But it should NOT be applied to people. And in my experience, founders and CEO’s often forget about that. This week’s letter is about how to relate to people when they are not what you need them to be, and how you avoid some common traps.
1. Partner with people for what they are, not for what you need them to be
A big part of your success as a founder or CEO is determined by who you partner with. The best example of this is who your cofounders are. What can they do? What do they want out of this? Who do they want to become? How dedicated are they to your common success? What are they willing and able to sacrifice? What are they NOT willing or able to sacrifice? When will they give up?
When you start a business with someone, or when you add people to your team, you do so based on an idea of how it will all play out. You have, of course, spent time and energy validating this idea before you partner up. But the truth is that you don’t know how things will play out up front. They don’t know either. These are things that we learn about ourselves and each other as we play the game together.
Some of the things you discover about yourself and your partners along the journey will come as pleasant surprises. Some discoveries will confirm things you saw from the outset. Some things will be worrying news. Whatever it is that you find, IT IS WHAT IT IS. You should expect it to NOT change. This is not predetermined, of course, but it is the most likely outcome, and you should be honest with yourself about that.
However, your builder brain will likely gravitate towards the “see things as potential mindset”, described above - and the risk is high, that you will approach this person the same way you would an unfinished or buggy product. “They are not who they need to be right now, but I will change them into what (I think) they need to be”.
You can’t. You can’t change people.
2. You can’t change people - but people can change
However, people change all the time in all sorts of ways. And their environment, including other people, plays into that. You are part of this environment. Your company is part of it and your common goal is part of it. This is the door to influence.
Talk candidly and respectfully about what you expect and need from each other in order to have common success. It is scary, but awesome things happen when you tell the truth about these matters. And if you are willing to hear the truth yourself!
Do it as soon as possible. All of this is easier the sooner you do it. (Although you should always talk about things that actually happened, not hypotheticals).
The longer you hold off, the more resentment builds around shortcomings and misalignments. Telling each other the truth is the key. Without it, things remain locked - and then you will just all “learn” that it is hopeless.
For every time you do not address the core issue, you will have to come up with a temporary solution in order to compensate for your partner’s shortcoming. This will probably work, so you could keep operating like that for a long time. I know companies that keep acrobatically operating around such unspoken dysfunctions forever. But it will also ENABLE the shortcoming. It will cement it.
And trust me. You will face enough real challenges as it is. No need to add stuff like an unhealthy, unproductive cofounder dynamic as well.
3. Know when it’s time to give up on each other, and forgive each other if you keep going
From the spoken truths, change grows. People step up. People become who the moment and the challenges need them to be. It happens all the time. From the candid discussions come lessons learned for all parties. You all change.
But it doesn’t always happen. And it doesn’t always happen in the direction and/or speed needed. In those cases you have a choice to make. Can you live with the lack of change? It’s an important question to think about - because if you move forward from this point, the rest is on you. It’s like when you buy a house. You have a duty to inspect it before you buy it - and you can’t come back to the sellers afterwards to complain about some problem you knew about when you bought it.
Often, it’s worth moving forward together anyway. People are different. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. If you want the strength you get the weakness too. That’s just how the world spins. If you do want to move forward together, you have to forgive the weaknesses, and you have to forgive them for any disappointment you felt when discovering the weakness.
A common trap, that I’ve seen many leaders fall into, is to move forward for the wrong reasons. I think this goes back to the builder’s mindset. Just as we are used to changing the world around us to achieve our goals, we are also generally taught never to give up. It can be very hard to let go of something that you have put such enormous amount of work into already. All of these things are good incentives to keep trying, even if we already know it won’t work. At the end of it is just more resentment and even higher costs.
If you can’t accept the status quo, and the person won’t change, it’s time to give up.
Knowing that this day may come, and to plan for it in shareholder agreements etc is a very valuable thing to do. Even if everything will be fine down the line, you’re so much better off handling bad outcomes before they happen. And it’s also a fantastic opportunity to get to know each other a bit more. How does your partner want to prepare for a future apart, and why do they think about it like that?
Thanks for reading and happy Friday!