Entrepreneurs have such an ambivalent relationship with structure. Every one I’ve met is truly distrustful of systems, processes, and clarified roles, worried that they’ll lose their ability to move nimbly and organically because they’ll have to complete a form in triplicate, or that their employees will lose that start-up hunger and become too complacent, too far away from the profits to see how their job impacts company health.

On the other hand, no structure means the entrepreneur has to rely on individual decision makers who may or may not see things the way he or she does, or, god forbid, they just make all the decisions themselves. Growth is stymied due to simple bandwidth issues at the top, and decision paralysis below.

Finding the sweet spot depends on several factors:

a) market

b) growth type and pattern

c) strengths and acknowledged weaknesses of both the entrepreneur and his or her trusted advisors

d) the entrepeneur’s “babies” – those areas that he or she just will never give up because it’s such a passion.

In the next few memos I’ll discuss each set of circumstances and how to help find that structure  sweet spot that allows entrepeneur input but doesn’t require their feedback at every turn.

(July 2010. Wow. I sure didn’t follow up on this promise. But I will. Someday.)