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Most businesses start with a spark, an idea fueled by hunger, resilience, or grit. But sustaining that energy through scale is the real challenge. Founders and leaders play a defining role in that journey. The same values, authenticity, and style that ignite early momentum can easily crush it. That’s why builders and entrepreneurs are essential to a new business. Think Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, or Sara Blakely. But that style is NOT for everyone, especially those who prefer less out-front leaders. These founders are visionary, pushing their teams to act in the way they want every employee to show up. But leaders at successful companies realize that business and talent need to change when moving from idea to execution to real scale. With growth comes complexity, and with complexity comes the risk of losing what made you successful in the first place. I am a firm believer that it’s possible to scale without losing either the speed or the special energy that makes the early stage so dynamic. Here’s how. BUILD IT RIGHT It’s common for early-stage company culture to revolve around the founder’s values, style, and passion. What actually makes it work? Leaders recruiting like-minded people, aligning around a clear vision, and rallying teams toward a common goal. But whats equally as important are the challengers, those who push them to think and do differently. Success cant be tied to just one person. To manage growth and cultivate innovation, you need two types of people: leaders who provide guidance and trust, and entrepreneurs who move fast and are comfortable with failure. Why is this so important? It establishes both the arena and terms for innovation. AI is shifting innovation to the edges of the organization. That’s a good thing, as long as leaders set the direction and standards, so speed doesn’t turn into waste or redundancy. Trust is equally important. No one takes risks or tries new things in a culture where failure equals termination. Leaders who ask for innovation hold others accountable, and see failure as a learning opportunity that will foster more successful teams and outcomes. MOVE QUICKLY AND DECISIVELY What’s also critical to ongoing entrepreneurship is a functioning feedback loop. We know that not every initiative will be a gamechanger, and that’s okay. The key is to find out quickly. That’s why we help clients build a quick prototype, test it fast, and either double down or shut it down before we’re too far down the line. Doing that effectively requires leaders who can collaborate but not necessarily seek consensus. They need to digest inputfrom customers, employees, and influencersand cut through it to make go/no-go decisions quickly. Wishy-washy or delayed decisions destroy entrepreneurial spirit. Fail-fast cultures become harder to maintain as the stakes get higher. Everyone may understand in theory that the only way to discover breakthroughs is to experiment. But reality hits the moment you’re sitting across from an investor staring at a tough quarter or a revenue dip. Thats exactly why its important to celebrate mistakes (yes, you heard that right), learn from them, and allow them to fuel what comes next. In those moments, “fail fast” can sound like “we’re failing, period.” But the best investors don’t expect perfection. They’re looking for accountability and transparency about why it didn’t work and what you learned. That builds trust. In Airbnb’s early days, an investor advised the cofounders to go door-to-door with a camera to improve listing photos at underperforming properties. It worked on a small scale, but became painful and impossible. So they pivoted, first by hiring others, then expanded by offering photography to property owners. The failure wasn’t the endit was a learning leading to a bigger business opportunity. Another example of this is with the Calm app, which started as a guided meditation platform but quickly hit a ceiling because users needed more variety. They pivoted by expanding into other content types, like sleep stories and mental health resources. What started as a narrow tool evolved and became more impactful because the team learned fast and iterated even faster. REWARD INTENTIONALLY Most technology and services companies rely on strong sales and delivery teams to drive revenue and support customers. Sales professionals are commonly charged with quotas and rewarded on deal size. That model works well, but if the organization only rewards selling and delivery, that’s where the energy and focus will go. In my experience, incentivizing entrepreneurs, innovators, and idea-drivers is equally important. It’s not about delivering a bonus for every idea, but having a system that tracks impact KPIs like success rates, impact on sales and reputation, and time saved. With a clear incentive and KPI framework, plus a space to share stories that highlight both smart failures and big wins, you’ll spark entrepreneurial energy across every level and department. When it’s working, you can see it and feel it: Teams challenge each other productively in meetings, new ideas flow consistently, and careers progress quickly. Speed is not sacrificed with the addition of discipline and relentless prioritization. At West Monroe, we also recognize the importance of celebrating and rewarding a culture of innovation by awarding bonuses to those who bring new ideas to life in ways that drive commercial success. Companies that build this type of cultureand nurture it intentionallywon’t just survive in this era of constant disruption, they’ll create and lead it. Casey Foss is chief commercial officer at West Monroe Partners.
Category:
E-Commerce
The Trump administration is calling on white men who believe they faced discrimination at work to file their complaints to a federal civil rights agency. The head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission urged white men to formally register their complaints with the government this week in a video posted to X. Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex? You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws, EEOC Commission Chair Andrea Lucas said. Lucas urged white men who qualified to contact the EEOC as soon as possible and pointed them to the agencys website and its explainer on DEI-related discrimination. The EEOC is committed to identifying, attacking, and eliminating ALL race and sex discrimination including against white male employees and applicants, Lucas wrote. The EEOCs priorities have shifted dramatically during the second Trump administration. The EEOC, born out of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was created to protect Americans from workplace discrimination and harassment. Given its origins, the agency had a historic focus on protecting minority employees from racial discrimination, but in more recent years its mission included investigations into instances of discrimination over gender, disability, age and national origin. At the same time that the EEOC is collecting complaints from white men, the agency has dropped six of its own cases representing transgender people who alleged workplace discrimination based on their gender identities. Dismantling diversity The Trump administration has deployed the EEOC in a very specific way over the course of the year, steering the agency toward its broader goals of dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. In March, the EEOC and the DOJ released a joint press release along with new documentation warning employers against unlawful DEI-related discrimination that could be interpreted to violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Far too many employers defend certain types of race or sex preferences as good, provided they are motivated by business interests in diversity, equity, or inclusion, Lucas said. But no matter an employers motive, there is no good, or even acceptable, race or sex discrimination. While the subtext was clear from the EEOCs recent changes, Lucas said the quiet part out loud on X. The Trump administration is keen to highlight perceived examples of anti-white discrimination in the country, and its willing to pull all the levers of government in pursuit of that goal. The White Houses framing of race in America increasingly reflects the language of once-fringe white nationalist theories, including debunked claims about a genocide of white South Africans and recent calls for remigration mass deportation for non-white immigrants. Trump himself has an extensive history of racist ideology, has repeatedly aligned himself with white nationalists and continues to promote a language of grievance around anti-white sentiment while stripping away federal policies designed to promote racial diversity. The EEOC has an unusual structure, but that hasnt been enough to block Trumps efforts to weaponize it during his second term. The agency is a commission made up of five members, with no more than three allowed to be from the same political party. The president can appoint commissioners, who serve a five year term, and can designate a chair to steer the agency, but generally the EEOC is designed to be bipartisan by definition, limiting the potential influence of whoever sits in the White House and keeping the commission independent. Quickly after taking office in January, Trump fired two of the federal agencys three Democratic commissioners an unprecedented departure from the commissions traditional five year terms. After filling one of the open slots with a lawyer who served in the Department of Education during his first term, two EEOC positions sit vacant, with one Biden appointee remaining in her role and two Trump appointees setting the agenda.
Category:
E-Commerce
The livestream of a YouTube content creator talking about investments mysteriously appeared to take over a White House website, raising questions about whether the site was hacked. The livestream appeared for at least eight minutes late Thursday on whitehouse.gov/live, where the White House usually streams live video of the president speaking. It’s unclear if the website was breached or the video was linked accidentally by someone in the government. The White House said in a statement that it was aware and looking into what happened. The video that appeared on the government-run website featured some of a more than two-hour livestream from Matt Farley, who posts as @RealMattMoney, as he answered financial questions. Farley said in an email to The Associated Press on Friday that he had no idea what happened. If I had known my stream was going to go super public like that I would be dressed a bit nicer and had a few more pointed topics! And it likely wouldnt have been about personal finance, Farley wrote. President Donald Trump‘s administration and campaign have had a series of digital security breaches and challenges over the last year. In May, government officials began investigating after elected officials, business executives, and other prominent figures received text messages and phone calls from someone impersonating Susie Wiles, the Republican president’s chief of staff. Last year, Iran hacked into Trumps campaign. Sensitive internal documents were stolen and distributed, including a dossier on Vice President JD Vance, created before he was selected as Trumps running mate. Michelle L. Price, Associated Press Associated Press writer Bill Barrow contributed to this report.
Category:
E-Commerce
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