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Telling the stories of startup founders and creators and their unique journey. Each episode features actionable tips, practical advice and inspirational insight.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:10:01
Welcome to the Founders Journey podcast. Inspiration education for Founders by Founders.
00:00:10:01 - 00:00:38:13
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 trade as we've been going through the series on those traits of the world's best founders, from our groundbreaking research that we just released at evergreen and the entrepreneurial adaptive innovator archetype. It's this trait 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.
00:00:38:16 - 00:01:03:07
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 and with customers. So we'll look at examples from two really iconic leaders, Elon Musk and Tony C, to see how they practice accountability in their companies. So let's dive in.
00:01:03:08 - 00:01:30:00
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 they're stakeholders or investors or employees or customers. That transparency is what really bring strategic accountability to the table. So at Evergreen Mountain, we invest behind founders. We're a venture capital firm.
00:01:30:03 - 00:01:52:21
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.
00:01:52:21 - 00:02:18:11
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.
00:02:18:13 - 00:02:40:12
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 Musk called really production hell. This is when the company struggled to meet production goals for the model three. They were nowhere even close. It was that time where he was sleeping on the factory floor.
00:02:40:12 - 00:03:04:22
He was building cars. It was a defining moment for Tesla and a defining moment for Elon Musk. As you 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.
00:03:04:22 - 00:03:31:19
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 and working with your team.
00:03:31:21 - 00:03:58:26
So let's look at Tony. See, Tony's the late CEO of Zappos. We lost Tony a couple of 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 Zappos and Tony decided they were going to experiment with a concept called Holacracy.
00:03:58:28 - 00:04:24:17
It's basically this radical self-management tool. Basically, it just breaks down an organization. It doesn't have real managers anymore. Was it 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.
00:04:24:23 - 00:04:53:03
He own 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 Zappos. 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 Zappos that really built that company and built deeper trust within their employees.
00:04:53:03 - 00:05:11:16
So how do you apply strategic accountability? How do you develop this trait in yourself and in your business? Here are some steps to at. We start with on both the successes and the mistakes and 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.
00:05:11:16 - 00:05:38:26
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. The failures are going to happen in startup. That's just the way it is.
00:05:38:28 - 00:05:58:19
You've got to learn from those failures and you have to lead by example. Your team won't lie like we talked about with Elon Musk working on the factory floor. Your team is 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.
00:05:58:27 - 00:06:21:05
It's about stepping up when things go wrong. Taking ownership of the solution. So going from Elon Musk, learn from Tony. See on how powerful accountability can be in building trust and driving long term success. And if you want to learn more about this and the other traits that define successful founders, go over to MVP, IO stands for Evergreen Mountain Equity Partners.
00:06:21:13 - 00:06:43:20
Go over to MVP, IO and download our free whitepaper, 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 at Founders Journey Podcast, and drop any comments below. We'd love to hear your thoughts on your practice of strategic accountability.