The Founder's Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth
- 6h 38m 39s
- Chris Zook, James Allen
- Gildan Media
- 2016
Why is profitable growth so hard to achieve and sustain? Most executives manage their companies as if the solution to that problem lies in the external environment: find an attractive market, formulate the right strategy, win new customers.
But when Bain & Company's Chris Zook and James Allen researched this question, they found that when companies fail to achieve their growth targets, 90 percent of the time the root causes are internal, not external—increasing distance from the front lines, loss of accountability, proliferating processes and bureaucracy, to name only a few. What's more, companies experience a set of predictable internal crises, at predictable stages, as they grow.
The key insight from Zook and Allen's research is that managing these choke points requires a "founder's mentality"-behaviors typically embodied by a bold, ambitious founder:
- An insurgent's clear mission and purpose
- An unambiguous owner mindset
- A relentless obsession with the front line
About the Author
Chris Zook is a partner at Bain & Company and has been co-head of the firm’s Global Strategy practice for twenty years. He is based in Boston and Amsterdam and specializes in helping companies find new sources of profitable growth.
James Allen is a partner in Bain’s London office. Co-head of the firm’s Global Strategy practice, he is founder of the Bain Founder’s Mentality 100, a global network of high-growth companies.
Zook and Allen are the authors of five bestselling books on strategy, including Profit from the Core.
In this Audiobook
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Introduction: The Paradox of Growth
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Chapter 1 - The Founder’s Mentality: The Key to Achieving Sustainable Growth
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Chapter 2 - The Three Predictable Crises of Growth: How Great Companies Lose Their Way
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Chapter 3 - Combating Overload: How the Founder’s Mentality Overcomes the Chaos of High Growth
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Chapter 4 - Reversing Stall-Out: How to Rediscover What Made You Great When Growth Slows
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Chapter 5 - Stopping Free Fall: Using the Founder’s Mentality to Save a Business in Rapid Decline
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Chapter 6 - Action Plan for Leaders: Infusing the Founder’s Mentality at All Levels of Your Organization
