Managing Corporate Lifecycles

In Courtship, the founder’s motivating goal should be to satisfy a market need, to create value, to make meaning.1

necessary level of commitment on a number of factors: The complexity of putting the business together; how long it will take to see positive results; and the degree of necessary innovation. I estimate the last factor by estimating how many existing “sacred cows” must be slaughtered.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Pathological problems are distinguishable from abnormal problems by their gravity and their chronic nature. Those are problems that, because they were not treated in time, now threaten the organization’s ability to survive. The most obvious examples of pathological problems are: uncontrollable negative cash flow, continuous emigration of key human resources away from the organization, unresolved quality problems, rapidly declining market share, tremendous drops in the company’s capacity to raise financial resources, and so forth.

overcome the cycle of repetitious problems that block their progress.

Normal problems are transitional in nature: You encounter them, solve them, learn from them, and readily move on. Abnormal problems are cul-de-sac problems. You “drive around in circles,” seeing your problems repeat themselves over and over again.

When an organization expends energy to make effective transitions from old to new patterns of behavior, I consider its problems normal.

The best way to cope with change is to help create it.

The role of leadership is to lead the necessary change that creates new problems, reintegrate the organization to solve those problems, prepare it to be changed again, and have new problems.

The successful diagnosis of every problem is the correct identification of what is falling apart,