The Art of Maneuver

AoM - The right way to replace a founder

When the time comes for you to leave an organization, don't count on the next person owning your ideas and initiatives the way you did. Don't count on them at all - the bureaucracy doesn't rise to the occasion to replace you well. Designate a natural stopping point while you're in the seat. So what should you look for? Look to naturally culminate components of what you've created by the time you leave. You have built tools and a brand that they can use in their own way. If you want them to be impactful, you need them to be agile for the way the next person wants to use them - not scripted for them. Use your success to enable the next person to be a founder.

AoM - Operate under the radar as long as you can

Don't let the bureaucracy over-invest in you. The bureaucracy will want to kill you. Think of Sun Tzu and the Art of War. Don’t let your adversary know you are it's adversary. Don’t skyline yourself as an innovator, or the bureaucracy will train its eyes on you to defeat you. Practically, it also puts too much pressure on the innovator if you are skylined too early. Innovation is about iterative design. Don’t force yourself as the innovator to defend yourself during the iterative process. Wait until your solution is too good to ignore.

AoM - Don’t build programs, find innovators and disruptors

Don’t build programs, find innovators and disruptors. Invest in them. You can manufacture them. You identify them. Pour the support you would have had for the founderless innovation office, into the next disruptor.

AoM - Innovation offices eventually become the bureaucracy

“Innovation” offices cannot survive beyond the founders, they simply become part of the bureaucracy at that point. Think of Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. He only invests in companies that still have their founder. His philosophy is that once a Founder is gone, they never truly innovate again. They might maintain market share and come out with interesting products, but they won’t come up with a revolutionary product. Once an exciting new innovation program is handed off from its founder, you can't expect the new leaders to truly own and lead the program. It’s not human nature to inherit something and truly make it one's own. Innovation is meant to disrupt the bureaucracy, but these offices that remain simply bloat the bureaucracy over time.

AoM - No one can compete with you at being you

Don't try to be something other than what you are. Don’t listen to that voice. It's distracting you from being you. You will be a horrible version of someone else. You're an incredible version of you. If you are truly you, if you embrace your skills, your authenticity and fully own that - you will bring the best version of yourself, and no one can compete with that. It's your competitive advantage. Build a world around your strengths. People will respond to that - because it's real, and people crave real.