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A Washington Post Bestseller
Three Principles for Managing-and Avoiding-the Problems of Growth
Why is profitable growth so hard to achieve and sustain? Most executives manage their companies as if the solution to that problem lies in the external environment: find an attractive market, formulate the right strategy, win new customers.
But when Bain & Company's Chris Zook and James Allen, authors of the bestselling Profit from the Core, researched this question, they found that when companies fail to achieve their growth targets, 90 percent of the time the root causes are internal, not external-increasing distance from the front lines, loss of accountability, proliferating processes and bureaucracy, to name only a few. What's more, companies experience a set of predictable internal crises, at predictable stages, as they grow. Even for healthy companies, these crises, if not managed properly, stifle the ability to grow further-and can actively lead to decline.
The key insight from Zook and Allen's research is that managing these choke points requires a "founder's mentality"-behaviors typically embodied by a bold, ambitious founder-to restore speed, focus, and connection to customers:
• An insurgent's clear mission and purpose
• An unambiguous owner mindset
• A relentless obsession with the front line
Based on the authors' decade-long study of companies in more than forty countries, The Founder's Mentality demonstrates the strong relationship between these three traits in companies of all kinds-not just start-ups-and their ability to sustain performance. Through rich analysis and inspiring examples, this book shows how any leader-not only a founder-can instill and leverage a founder's mentality throughout their organization and find lasting, profitable growth.
Three Principles for Managing-and Avoiding-the Problems of Growth
Why is profitable growth so hard to achieve and sustain? Most executives manage their companies as if the solution to that problem lies in the external environment: find an attractive market, formulate the right strategy, win new customers.
But when Bain & Company's Chris Zook and James Allen, authors of the bestselling Profit from the Core, researched this question, they found that when companies fail to achieve their growth targets, 90 percent of the time the root causes are internal, not external-increasing distance from the front lines, loss of accountability, proliferating processes and bureaucracy, to name only a few. What's more, companies experience a set of predictable internal crises, at predictable stages, as they grow. Even for healthy companies, these crises, if not managed properly, stifle the ability to grow further-and can actively lead to decline.
The key insight from Zook and Allen's research is that managing these choke points requires a "founder's mentality"-behaviors typically embodied by a bold, ambitious founder-to restore speed, focus, and connection to customers:
• An insurgent's clear mission and purpose
• An unambiguous owner mindset
• A relentless obsession with the front line
Based on the authors' decade-long study of companies in more than forty countries, The Founder's Mentality demonstrates the strong relationship between these three traits in companies of all kinds-not just start-ups-and their ability to sustain performance. Through rich analysis and inspiring examples, this book shows how any leader-not only a founder-can instill and leverage a founder's mentality throughout their organization and find lasting, profitable growth.
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Reviews
"As a founder myself, I get it. I care about my company so much. I understand what it means to have a founder around.
I think your book is so interesting, so right on."
J.J. Abrams, MSNBC's 'Your Business'
"Chris Zook and James Allen have done a fine job of putting this theory into words. Their book, The Founder's Mentality is the product of a lot of research, and thousands of hours of experience by these two senior Bain partners."
Management Today, UK
"In a good book, I look for people who have made a ton of mistakes, so I can learn from them. One of the observations in The Founder's Mentality [by Chris Zook and James Allen] is that founder-led companies in general perform better on the stock market."
Chieh Huang, cofounder and CEO of Boxed on what he reads at 30,000 feet, as seen in Forbes