It pains me to watch this company A.
They have 40+ employees and are losing money every month, like clockwork. They have some revenue, but the revenue isn’t growing as fast and their business has low margins. They should do something ASAP – either downsize the team significantly or sell off part of their business.
Many people have been advising the CEO on these moves but the CEO has been hesitating, citing various reasons, leading to everyone’s frustrations. The CEO’s rationale: Part of their team has been working on this new project which, upon successful launch, hopefully will be a game changer; Their different parts of businesses are so closely connected and creating synergies that yanking cord on one business will lead to the collapse of the entire thing. CEO hopes they’ll be able to secure some sort of bridge funding (really? in this funding environment?)
But to anyone outside, the writing is on the wall that the company will go down soon if they don’t make drastic changes NOW. Signs cannot be clearer. If the company goes down, what use will the new product have?
And they’re still hesitating. Makes no sense, right? Guess what, surprisingly and sadly, there are more companies and CEOs like this out there than you might think.
Founders need to be coachable. Coachable doesn’t mean lack of one’s own perspective and swaying back and forth, listening to other people too much. Coachable means being smart and decisive. Smart enough to compare outside advices and signals against one’s own ideas and belief system; and make course corrections (if necessary) in a quick and decisive way.