For 19 years, I woke up every morning and put on a Mobile Outfitters t-shirt…that’s why today feels a little strange
For 19 years, I woke up every morning and put on a Mobile Outfitters t-shirt.
That’s why today feels a little strange…
After more than 25 years building companies and recently exiting Mobile Outfitters, I’m starting a new chapter: Coach Griff
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do next, and I keep coming back to a part of the founder journey that I know so well…
You build the company. You hire good people. You let go of the vine and give them real accountabilities. You add more structure. Maybe you bring in a system like EOS or Scaling Up.
And then as important decisions come up, somehow they keep ending up back with you, the founder…
I lived plenty of versions of that.
There were times when I had strong people around me, everyone knew who owned what, and when the stakes got high, I still found myself back in the middle of the decision.
Sometimes that was exactly where I needed to be.
Sometimes it wasn’t.
Founders don’t become bottlenecks because they want control. They become bottlenecks because they’ve spent years being the best decision maker in the room…
Changing that is harder to sort out than it sounds, because the same judgment, standards and willingness to step in that helped build the company don’t suddenly go away just because roles changed on paper…
At some point, though, ownership on paper has to become authority in practice.
That transition is exactly what I am spending this next chapter helping other founders navigate.
Not as an EOS Implementer. Not as a fractional CXO..
Just as someone who has been in the seat for 25 years, made plenty of mistakes, built award-winning cultures, built leadership teams that made difficult decisions without waiting for me, and learned a lot along the way.
If you’re somewhere in that transition too, message me if you want to talk.
