Stanford Professor Jesper B. Sørensen defines strategy as “the plan for creating and capturing value”.
Startups are constantly working to define and update their business growth strategy, which is the right thing to do. But something is missing.
I believe that founders and the CEO need to also create personal growth strategies.
What is a personal growth strategy?
This is the professional and managerial growth plan to create and capture value as the leaders of the startup.
What does the personal growth strategy include?
I recently conducted a research interviewing more than 350 founders, over 100 VC’s and investors and other key players in the eco-system. The research shows that each stage of the startup life cycle has different growth requirements from the founders and CEO.
These different requirements relate to management skills, leadership capacity, interpersonal assets and best ways to navigate complexity.
Trying to use the known and familiar methods or repeating the behaviors which led to success in the previous stage – will lead to failure.
Once the business grows from one round to the next, the founders must update and align their personal growth strategy.
In addition to the business stage, the growth strategy should be based on personal dimensions:
