Strategic Accountability: Owning Your Success and Mistakes | TFJP 83

[Music]

welcome to the founders Journey podcast

inspiration education for Founders by

Founders hey I’m Greg Moran co-founder

of Evergreen Mountain Equity partners

and host of the founders Journey podcast

and today we’re going to talk about the

final trait as we’ve been going through

this series on those traits of the

world’s best Founders from our

groundbreaking research that we just

released at Evergreen on the

entrepreneurial adaptive innovator

archetype it’s this trade is really

something that’s critical to being a

successful leader but it also just kind

of makes you a little bit better person

as well and that trait is strategic

accountability it’s the trait that great

Founders use to take ownership of their

successes and their mistakes and it’s

what builds trust with teams with

investors with customers so we’ll look

at examples from two really iconic

leaders Elon Musk and Tony C to see how

they practiced accountability in their

companies so let’s dive in so strategic

accountability is really about taking

responsibility for both your successes

and your failures what it means is

owning your decisions and being

transparent with your team and

stakeholders whether those’re

stakeholders or investors or employees

or customers that transparency is what

really brings strategic accountability

to the table so at Evergreen Mountain we

invest behind Founders we’re a venture

capital firm and the first thing we look

for is the quality of founder and what

we really have seen is that most

successful Founders don’t just take

credit when things go well they actually

are pretty bad at taking credit when

things go well they also step up when

things go wrong and they’re usually the

first to do that what this does is it

builds trust and it creates a culture of

responsibility so it’s a crucial trait

for any leader to have but it’s

especially important for Founders

because they’re the ones who set the

tone for the entire company so let’s

take a look at a couple Founders let’s

start by looking at Elon Musk and how he

demonstrated really strategic

accountability during one of Tesla’s

biggest challenges Tesla has had I mean

they’re obviously today a world-renowned

car company but they’ve had a lot of

struggle getting there and Elon Musk is

known for taking big risks and pushing

boundaries but he’s also really

transparent about those challenges that

come with those risks so in 2018 Tesla

went through what mus called really

production hell this is when the company

struggled to meet production goals for

the model 3 they were nowhere even close

it was that time where he was sleeping

on the factory floor he was building

cars it was a defining moment for Tesla

and a defining moment for Elon Musk as

he really took full responsibility for

the delays and the manufacturing issues

that were really ensuing so he didn’t

hide behind the problems or blame others

what he did was really publicly

acknowledge the issues he worked on the

factory floor with his team and he took

ownership by fixing the production

process so by stepping up and being

transparent what he was really able to

do was reassure investors reassure

employees reassure customers that he was

accountable and he was really committed

to solving the problem that’s really

what strategic accountability is about

it’s about admitting when things don’t

go as planned which they almost never do

and owning the responsibility working

tirelessly to turn the situation around

working with your team so let’s look at

Tony C Tony’s the late CEO of zapo we

lost Tony a couple years ago and he was

a truly incredible leader he was known

for creating a culture of openness and

transparency he’s probably one of the

best known examples of or one of his

best known examples of accountability

came when

this radical self-management tool

basically just breaks down an

organization and doesn’t have real

managers anymore wasn’t really a smooth

transition for the company many

employees found the system challenging

it just wasn’t working but Tony took

full responsibility for the experiment

so rather than blame the employees and

try to force them he really what he did

he went directly at the issues that were

coming up he owned the decision and he

worked with his team to really adjust

the system he was completely transparent

with employees about the challenges he

listened to their feedback and then he

made changes while staying really

committed to zapo values of innovation

and collaboration his willingness to

both own the successes and own the

missteps of this initiative really

helped preserve the strong culture at

zaposlitev

start with own both the successes and

the mistakes when things go right

celebrate with the team when things go

wrong take responsibility there’s a

saying in management that says the wins

go to the team the losses go to me think

about that owning the successes and the

mistakes be transparent communicate

openly with your team and your

stakeholders

investors customers employees even when

it’s uncomfortable especially when it’s

uncomfortable learn from your failures

use your mistakes as real opportunities

to grow and improve the process failures

are going to happen in a startup that’s

just the way it is you’ve got to learn

from those failures and you have to lead

by example your team will like like we

talked about with Elon Musk working on

the factory floor your team’s going to

follow your lead so show them what it

looks like to be accountable and

committed to fixing problems not just

throwing it on them so strategic

accountability is really more about

taking credit for your successes it’s

about stpp stepping up when things go

wrong taking ownership of the solution

so learn from Elon Musk learn from Tony

C on how powerful accountability can be

in building trust and driving long-term

success and if you want to learn more

about this in the other traits that

Define successful Founders go over to

.io that stands for Evergreen Mountain

Equity Partners go over to

.io and download our free white paper

understanding the behavioral DNA of

successful Founders and before you go

don’t forget to like this video

subscribe to the channel hit the

notification Bell so you don’t miss

future episodes of Founders Journey

podcast and drop any comments below we’d

love to hear your thoughts on your

practice of strategic accountability see

you next time