The task of building a business from the ground up is enormously challenging. Many factors shape the success or failure of a new business, whether it’s a stand-alone start-up or a venture inside a larger corporation.
There are many elements at play – however, when building for growth is imperative, the most important and often least understood is the personality of the entrepreneur. It shapes everything from the team and product to the overall business strategy and it is the one resource that founders and entrepreneurs can directly control.
In ‘Built For Growth: How Builder Personality Shapes Your Business, Your Team, and Your Ability to Win’. Chris Kuenne and John Danner decode the interplay between builder personality and new business growth. They demonstrate that who you are shapes how you build.
The particular combination of beliefs and preferences that drive their motivation, decision making, and leadership style can select the right team, early customers and financial sponsors for maximum impact.
Using a patented analytic methodology Kuenne and Danner discovered there is no single type of highly successful business builder, but rather four distinct Builder Personalities, each of whom build businesses of significant scale in markedly different ways.
• The Driver: Relentless, Commercially Focused, and Highly Confident
• The Explorer: Curious, Systems-Centric, and Dispassionate
• The Crusader: Audacious, Mission-Inspired, and Compassionate
• The Captain: Pragmatic, Team-Enabling, and Direct.
"Built for Growth, with assessments and tools, including a brief Builder Personality quiz and in-depth profiles of each builder type, Built for Growth is the ultimate guide for how to play to your strengths, complement and compensate for your gaps, and build a successful business―from start-up to scale-up. Its vivid stories and practical advice show how you can unlock the potential of your builder personality to shape your business, your team, and your ability to win in the marketplace.
A highlight is the experienced analysis to illustrate how each type handles the five dynamic challenges of building businesses of enduring value:
1. converting ideas into products,
2. galvanizing individual talent for collective impact,
3. transforming buyers to partners,
4. aligning financial and other support, and
5. scaling the business.
So are you, a Driver, an Explorer, a Crusader, or a Captain?
Source: Chris Kuenne: ‘Built for Growth: How Builder Personality Shapes Your Business, Your Team, and Your Ability to Win’.
