Would you be a 'Founder' or a 'ReFounder'?

If you have heard Satya Nadella speak about his experience of leading Microsoft since he took over the role of CEO, you would have heard him speak about being a 'Refounder'.

Being essentially the first non founder CEO, I felt the real need to, in some sense, refound the company or borrowing the phrase that Reid Hoffman users, which I like a lot, because from time to time, companies need that moment where you need to reground yourself and starting with. The sense of purpose and mission, like why do we exist?

If you are counting the number of people who have been taking up the top most jobs at companies that are not founded by them, this # is only going to go up.

Here are three such popular ones who have taken up the CEO job as the first non-founders Sundar Pichai at Google, Leena Nai at Chanel, Laxman Narasimhan at Starbucks.

To be able to take responsibility for something that you've not built and still transform it for the good, is no joke. That, to me, seems like an even more difficult task than being a founder.

The best thing Founders can do is substraction. It is much easier to add things than to remove things. Very rarely & only the very best non-founder CEOs can substract things. ― Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify

So all said and done, given a chance, would you be a Founder or a Refounder?

Reboot to become a Refounder

Changing jobs is not so uncommon. Changing industries? It was uncommon once. I feel the trend is changing fast and will only become very common as we move forward.

Yet a vast majority of people might find it difficult to switch industries.

Changing domains, changing industries, changing the nature of work you do after spending several years, is a skill in itself. But not everyone can succeed at this daunting task.

In the article below, you can find five simple yet very powerful steps that will help you switch industries.

1. Do your research and be strategic
2. Know your core skills and how to articulate their transferability
3. Network relentlessly
4. Experiment, get trained, be flexible 
5. Show passion, energy and determination

If finding a job is hard, finding one in a different industry can be even trickier. One of the biggest obstacles is employers who don’t see how you can transfer your skills into a new business context.

Continuing the theme of refounding, this is a great mindset to develop yourself as a Refounder material because if you can reboot and reinvent your own career, you can perhaps replicate the same at the company level too.

Book(s) Discovery:

Refounder - how transformational leaders take what's broken and make it better

No surprises for guessing the name of the book here. Its "Refounder" 😎

I think this book is a great resource for anyone who might be interested in reviving a business that is not founded by them or if you are a manager who is tasked with changing the work culture despite not being the owner of the company.

I am very interested to learn from leaders who operate with a refounder’s mentality. Are you also keen to learn? Send me a message if you want to discuss about this topic or the book.

Refounders become masters of context, taking in as much information about their environments to rebuild businesses, systems, structure or practices that thrive. Refounding is an ongoing process, and true Refounders cultivate the mentality and practices to engage in that process for a lifetime.

See you next week in #TraceYourMastery. Check out all the previous editions here.