The Five Most Important Founder Issues

Just ran into this posting that hits several critical founder issues right on the head. Take a look at Roger Anderson's Modern Magellan post entitled: Founder Issues - New wine in an old bottle Part 4. Roger lists the 5 most important founder issues for a new company:

1. Control
2. Communication
3. Personal value
4. Short-sightedness
5. Salary

"It could be argued that they all exist in most founders, regardless of the level of experience. A founder with prior experience may feel that they know more about business than anyone around them. Such over confidence can lead to errors that amateurs do not make."

His posting is a good read.

90% of Managers think they are among the Top 10% of Performers

Business Week, August 20 & 27 edition, reports on p. 43 that among other things associated with how people view their "work" environments, this startling statistic. The percentage gets even higher - 96% - when they segregate out only companies with 50 or fewer employees. Like Lake Wobegon, where all the students are above average, the idea that so many managers think they are doing so well is likely a surprise to their supervisors, or is it?

Certainly, it is a statement of the ineffectiveness of our employee review systems for this many employees to be this wrong. Companies must improve the process of evaluating employees and communicate this clearly to their people or risk a plethora of wrongful termination suits, seldom improving employees and mediocre company performance. Perhaps telling employees the "bad" news is a difficult task. However, the consequences of not doing so will likely be enormous.