In Sept 2020, my son Jamie was born. He was born with a disease that contained a condition of autoimmunity. Autoimmunity could be described as when an organism hyper-responds with its function and inflicts damage to the very thing it is designed to protect.
In Jamie’s case, his immune system would attack himself and inflict symptoms from within, instead of limiting its function to recognizing and protecting his body from viruses that come from the outside. Without intervention, this type of disease will cause deterioration and premature death.
As crazy as it sounds, this type of disease is an affliction that can sabotage many owners and their businesses. I am going to call it entrepreneurial auto-immune disease. The very qualities that help us get into business can turn on us with destructive symptoms. We see opportunity. We want to say yes. We can do this too, and that and the other thing. And in the process, we either destroy, forget, or never learn what we are truly proficient at.
Several years ago, I was handed a business card from a contractor. On the front of the card, it had the logo and contact information as usual. On the back of the card, at the top it said, “Specializing in…” and underneath was a list of about 14 construction types. Specializing in 14 different project types! That sounds crazy, and it is. Most of us can’t specialize in 2 things, let alone 14.
To be fair, there is a time to do work outside of our specialty. When you start a brand-new business, you will probably do whatever it takes to stay busy. I remember at the birth of Countryside in April 2008, I did anything from pouring concrete inside barns, to filling an old pool with topsoil, to pouring driveways and patios in the city, to helping a friend frame houses, to digging out stumps.
It was about surviving, not being picky with work. But it wasn’t long until a specialty emerged. We narrowed it to concrete foundations and flatwork for several building types. We had found our groove and were doing well.
But with the passing of time, I was inflicted with entrepreneurial auto-immune disease. I made the mistake of believing that if I was good at one thing, I must be good at everything. We bought an excavation company and started a pumping company. Later out of an organic process of selling concrete trowels and supplies we formed another company to host this part of the business.
As glamorous as all this may seem, it is an opportune condition to self-inflict destructive symptoms. It can spawn a cultural and operational identity complex. Who really are we and what do we do? It’s like getting lost in your hometown.
Entrepreneurial autoimmunity afflicts companies at every spectrum of growth. In smaller companies it often limits the efficiency of labor, and the effectiveness of talent. I grimace when I hear an owner-operator of a small construction company say, “We do it all. We dig the footings, backfill, do the concrete, frame and roof.” I know they are either doing none of it well, or they are not capitalizing on the one or two things they really are good at.
In larger companies it will fracture vision, energy and attention at the corporate level, often leading to investments made at the wrong places, and causing cultural confusion and operational deficiencies downstream.
For Jamie to live, he needed a bone marrow transplant to replace his immune system with a healthy one. For Countryside to thrive, we needed to set out again to find our north star. We amalgamated all our companies under one corporation – Cultural identity. We formed our businesses into 4 distinct divisions run by focused managers – operational clarity.
For Jamie, it was a onetime procedure, that hopefully lasts for life. For your business and mine, it’s an ongoing journey. But for now, I want you to ask two questions for yourself and your company.
- What are we good at that we should be doing more and better?
- What should we stop doing that is wasting energy and resources?
These can be challenging questions and usually one question leads to another. Next month I want to give you a simple tool that may help in a small way to answer these questions.
Until then, thanks for reading, and as always, take good care.
