Certain dynamics are common to founder-led organizations. To briefly review and put into perspective these dynamics will enable a clear-eyed look at the process and outcomes of founder transitions. First, the very nature of founder leadership creates some enduring, but not insurmountable, challenges:
There is often not much sense of shared ownership.
The board is chosen by the founders rather than employing these directors and therefore may have a more distant (and less valuable) relationship in terms of governance and oversight.
Oftentimes those who can create, or recreate, an organization are not also the ones capable of managing its operations steadily. Compounding this problem is the fact that managers have a challenging time finding their own role when working with founders.
Many inside the organization believe that they have little freedom to do things in a way that suits them, even if it gets to the same purpose, but rather must do things the way the founders want it done.
Outsiders often question whether the founders really want to collaborate.
The public can so associate the organization with its founder as to believe its value is only real while he or she is still in a leadership role.
On the other hand, some powerful, positive dynamics exist as well:
The founders generally hold to the artistic purpose quite passionately and their enthusiasm can be contagious.
There is real clarity in artistic and programmatic decision making because it is so closely held.
An enormous adrenaline rush often occurs as new ideas burst forth and proliferate throughout an organization. Those within the organization can feel a part of history because they are working together during the special period of the founders.
The institution will most likely be established in such a way as to reflect the strengths and the weaknesses of the founder precisely. This can be a source of vulnerability, but even more a strength because all aspects of the company’s operations are generally in alignment — in this case, with the founder’s will and abilities.
And this will, itself, is a powerful stimulant to organizational survival and growth, and to motivation of others who join in the journey.
The challenge in considering these normal dynamics is not to assume that they must be accepted, while recognizing how resistant they can be to change.
The cultural community has experienced a large number of founder (or “might as well be founder” transitions) in recent years. Sufficient case history is available to draw some conclusions about the dynamics particular to these moments in organizational history. We are choosing to express these dynamics as a series of indicators, which can be perceived as continuums. Therefore, in each case, the truer the statement is, the more likely the transition will be successful to new leadership:
The founder must be supportive: On the face of it, this would appear self-evident. However, the founder faces an enormous emotional and psychic challenge to truly endorse a change and accept the inevitable adjustments that his or her company will make. By its very definition, a founder transition triggers a thinking beyond the founder, a potentially painful process for any human being, let alone a founder whose life’s work is a creative endeavor, to experience.
There must be clarity about institutional priorities: The extent to which the founder’s staff and lay leadership have worked through the basic direction for company and its values will help to anchor the successor in what always proves to be a shifting, and at times, mercurial, organizational environment as new allegiances are questioned and developed.
The artistic or programmatic staff must remain to provide their best work: As arts and culture organizations, our companies must never lose sight of the criticality of delivering high-quality and meaningful programming to their communities. Founder transitions can be so absorbing as to risk the leadership’s focus upon what really matters for sustainability.
The Board must have enough history of good governance to see its way through the complexities of the transition: As noted above, these transitions are challenging, and lay leadership’s wisdom is most definitely called for. The successor will want very clear expectations and will need and deserve institutional patience. The professional staff of course plays a significant role in creating this kind of culture, but the lay board truly sets the tone.
The professional staff must be of high quality: The successor will need to consider with professional colleagues on staff what changes, if any, are in the organization’s best interest. It is extremely difficult to obtain unbiased views in this regard at the departure of a founder. Moreover, it is often unrealistic to expect a high level of forgiveness for the successor’s errors as perceived by staff. These transitions demand a willingness to transfer loyalties that can be challenging to achieve. To surmount these various challenges requires a most professional and accomplished staff.
The remaining partner to the departing executive must be strong and a voice of calm and reason: In many of our institutions, a key partner or collaborator remains after the founder. This individual has the opportunity to help guide the transition and must remain clear-eyed about the needs of the successor, professional staff, and lay leadership.
The financial underpinnings must be strong: As in other industries, founder transitions can create unpleasant financial results as staff, trustees, and audiences all adjust to new leadership. Obviously, the stronger the existing financial condition, the greater the institution’s capacity to withstand these stresses.
There must be substantial community good will, especially including an understanding of how the institution suits the public good: While financial strengths are real and quantifiable, a softer factor is equally important, here labeled “community goodwill.” Will the city or town show patience? Will the local media recognize the complexity of the founder transition and accept some bumps in the road? Will the local donor community invest in the future despite the sense of loss surrounding the founder’s departure? The answers to these and comparable questions are often determined by the amount of goodwill the organization has in the community.
With all this analysis of founder dynamics and transitions, we conclude with a strong warning. Sometimes even the best organizations are just not set to survive their founders and perhaps should not even try. In fact, some even believe that, for certain organizations, the entire fabric of the organization is woven with the founders -- its temperament, its way of being -- and that it is wrong for it to exist past them. In such cases, the board and staff should just let the organization run its meteoric course and then stop upon the founder’s departure.
Should an organization’s people choose to continue, with a focus upon how to best sustain organizations beyond their founders, the task will be daunting at best. Case histories indicate that more often than not, the immediate successor after the founder does not have a successful tenure. Sometimes it can take one or two more leadership changes for a complete founder transition to work. This, of course, is true in all sectors of our society, not just in arts and cultural organizations. One need only look at the history of the Apple Corporation for anecdotal confirmation.
On the other hand, it is refreshing during these difficult times to reflect on the incredible accomplishments of the many accomplished and creative founders, “might-as-well-be-called-founders,” and all their collaborators, as well as upon the truly essential issues of purpose and direction that affect these cultural institutions. We hope that doing so provides a source of inspiration to us all.