“Of course I know what I want my business to be in a few years.” That’s roughly what the founders’ initial statement sounds like, to summarize a lot of our meetings. Over the course of the conversation, however, it became apparent to both of us that this statement was false. What was internally felt as clarity by the founder suddenly turned out to be vague when trying to express aspects of the vision in numbers and words. To my clarifying questions, I often heard: “Hmm, good question. I have to think about it. I can’t answer right away. I could see that the founder himself was surprised as his confidence turned to confusion.
This insight explains a number of negative symptoms that the company has long suffered from. Co-founder conflicts, suspension of important decisions, squandering of resources, CEO turnover, declining profits and more are happening because all the stakeholders, including the founder himself, are convinced: “Whoever, but he knows exactly where we’re going.” The inevitable contradictions between what was asserted just a month ago and today are interpreted in the spirit of, “I guess I just don’t know something. But, of course, the owner knows best.”
The irony is that the founder’s vision is both present and absent. I realized this phenomenon when I studied the psychotherapeutic technique of “Focusing,” discovered by Professor Eugene Jendlin of the University of Chicago. Although the technique is effective in and of itself, it was important for me to learn its basis, which Eugene called the Philosophy of Implicit. Before something can be expressed in words, images, concepts, structures and other explicit forms, it necessarily exists in the human body in an implicit form. The latter arises as a result of the constant connection of any organism with its environment. Transformation of implicit into explicit does not always happen by itself quickly and easily. In such cases it takes time, a push of fate or someone who knows how to listen in a special way.
Sincerely yours,
-Alexander
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”Who are you and what do you do?"
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.
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