Episode #47
It Was Never Yours. Can You Lead a Culture You Didn't Create? | Eric Giesecke
Can you lead a culture you didn't create? Most leaders are told to put their stamp on the culture. Eric Giesecke inherited one and did the opposite. He never tried to make it his. In 2015, Eric acquired Planet DDS through a search fund, with no background in dentistry and none in software. The company had 25 employees, a go-to-market team of three and one customer that accounted for 15 to 20 percent of revenue. Ten years later it serves over 13,000 dental practices across North America, employs roughly 350 people, works with more than half of the 60 largest dental organizations in the country, and its revenue team alone has grown from three people to 75. In this conversation, we explore how an outsider earns credibility, why a company's values should be a reflection rather than an imprint, what breaks when a CEO can no longer meet every new hire, and how culture survives once one person can no longer hold it. In this conversation, we explore: Why the famous culture decks are the wrong place to find your own company's values What a CEO loses at employee 100, and what has to replace him Why "middle management is the death of motivation," and what comes after it How culture ends up carried by the people at the happy hour and the pickup basketball game rather than by the CEO Why a company is safer when its next leaders step up from inside than when a new CEO is brought in What a leader should refuse to compromise on, even in a culture that was never his "Can you lead a culture you didn't create?" is not only a question for leaders who bought their company. It's also a question for founders who acquire and absorb other teams. It's worth revisiting for anyone whose company grows past the point where they know everyone in it. If you are building a company you hope will outlast you, this conversation offers a different place to start. Not with what you would put into the culture, but with what was already there. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CHAPTERS 00:00:00 Can You Lead a Culture You Didn't Create? 00:03:34 Would You Buy a Company You Know Nothing About? 00:06:12 What Happens When Nobody Chose You? 00:10:19 What Were You Really Buying? 00:13:13 What Exactly Is a Search Fund? 00:17:30 Do You Lead First… or Listen First? 00:21:57 Can You Inherit Values? 00:30:40 How Do You Know a Culture Is Real? 00:36:44 Can One Customer Change Everything? 00:40:34 Does Leadership Get Harder… or Lonelier? 00:43:47 Can the Company Run Without You? 00:47:25 How Many People Can One Leader Actually Carry? 00:51:00 Which Decision Changed Everything? 00:54:53 What Breaks After Employee 100? 00:59:53 Getting In Touch With Eric Giesecke ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Episode Show Notes and Deep Dive Deep Dive, Show Notes and Reference Reading: https://www.awayre.com/founders-span-of-culture/ Connect with Eric Giesecke Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-giesecke-5657513/ Planet DDS: https://www.planetdds.com/ Follow Bhavesh Naik Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhaveshnaik/ Be a Guest on The Business Philosopher Within You ♀️ https://www.awayre.com/business-philosopher-within-you-podcast-guest/ Take Founder Dependency Snapshot https://www.awayre.com/founder-dependency-snapshot/ Music by Yrii Semchyshyn (Thank You!): https://www.patreon.com/yuriisemchyshyn
