I was talking to a friend of mine, let’s call him Dan, the other day who works at an incubator. We were talking about this program that he became in charge of through a transition for the organization and now no longer runs it. The discussion was interesting as I was very impressed with the program as it had been around for 9 years and had incredible results with each cohort. In the startup
In the startup world, you see a lot of hype for the next best accelerators or incubators that can “truly help startups accelerate their ventures”, but many of them disappear after a few cohorts or years. When I heard about this program that Dan had run and its track record for 9 years and over 100 companies that have gone through it, I was thoroughly impressed. Programs just aren’t built for sustainability these days. I was intrigued and proceeded to ask Dan how he was able run the program so well and ensure its lively hood after he finished running it. He replied that “it does no good to just have a great program while I am running it.” He said, that his goal with taking over the program was not to be the end all be all but to build out the processes and standards to make the success repeatable in order to train the next leaders. I was clearly very impressed.
So many people plan for today, but not for tomorrow. They are so focused on themselves and their successes instead of thinking about the community or what happens after them. I believe that the value of a program, service, or person should be judged on what happens to them once that person is removed. If that person doesn’t show up to work the next day, can the program survive or does it fail. If they did their job, then the next person with limited ability should be able to pick up where they left off and drive success on day 1.
This kind of leadership that Dan showed through this conversation was unique and special. The act of building a sustainable machine is so unique and a prized possession.