The Board of One Concept
Introduction
Preamble
The “reset” of the economy following the recession of 2008 has resulted in a significant increase in the failure rates of small business, and at best, significantly slowed the average revenue and profitability growth of the small business sector of the economy.
In cooperation with University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business, the Tablero Group has developed and now provides a concept that would enable business services CEO’s and Entrepreneurs to be more effective and potentially create significant shareholder wealth, in the more competitive and complex “New Economy”.
Statistics have proven and shown that over 98% of all small services businesses started since 2007 have failed or filed bankruptcy by year-end 2016. In fact only 1% have made it to the $10MM in revenue level, and what is more relevant is that <.5% have made it to $30MM revenue level.
The majority of small businesses are generally created by founders that have great ideas coupled with expertise in one or two of the business functional areas. Most common areas of founder “core competencies” are sales and technology backgrounds. Therefore these leaders rarely are “fully or adequately skilled” to effectively lead and manage all the functional areas of an emerging and complex service business.
This concept conceived in 2010, is known as the
“Board of One”
The Concept Objective
The "Board of One" objective is to provide the skills and resources necessary to “augment” those that the company leader simply does not illustrate in order to create the "Highly Skilled CEO Entrepreneur."
The Outcome for the CEO Entrepreneur
The emerging business services company and its CEO Entrepreneur will have at its accessibility and disposal, the complex skills required to create scalable business models and leadership that is equipped to succeed in the “New Economy.”
Simply stated; crossing the chasm from a small lifestyle oriented business, to a wealth creation business model that is institutional capital worthy, requires holistic planning, effective leadership and management skills, significant experience, coupled with “best of breed” operational and execution capabilities. This enables entrepreneurs to become "Highly Skilled CEO Entrepreneurs!”
Paradigm and Need for Change
Historically the resident CEO “skill deficiency” issue has been solved by retaining functional/domain consultants to temporarily provide these functional needs, or stated differently a “bottom up” or task oriented people approach. This functional approach has been a significant contributor to the failure and growth stagnation rates of small businesses in the “New Economy.”
Therefore, due to complexities of the marketplace, compliance and regulation along with global economy influences, this functional approach needed to be replaced by a different methodology that is more holistic oriented.
What has been proven over the past 6+ years to be successful is a “top down” holistic governance approach that is business process centric, coupled with economic efficient execution that builds the long-term capability and capacity of the organization. Additionally, advisory boards and organizations such as Vistage, YPO, and other “feel good” associations have proven to be quite ineffective and at best, the outcome is to creating “lifestyle” oriented businesses.
The reason is, these organizations do not “treat” the fundamental business model and requisite business process needs of services businesses, in a holistic manner.
Practical Implementation of the “Board of One” Concept
What has proven successful is the “Board of One” concept where the founder partners with a proven well established, experienced “executive” with access to the “resources and skills required ” that can facilitate the “project management aspect” of developing a holistic business model and business model processes that has the capability and capacity to create scalable economic efficiency resulting in institutional centric shareholder wealth.
The Board of One + the CEO Entrepreneur = Shareholder Wealth!
The “Board of One” concept enables entrepreneurs to get a professionals’ outside influence to refresh their business, take the core idea (that may have stagnated) and transform it into a “real” wealth creating business, validate and credentialize the business model, and enable it grow and expand.
Realized Results of the Board of One Concept
Being a successful leader requires many of the fundamental gifts and talents of an entrepreneur such as: Passion and Confidence, the ability to Build and Lead a Team, Creativity, Inspiration. Some Entrepreneurs are natural leaders, if they can overcome overzealous control behaviors, and adhere to a core set of values and principles to present themselves as “True Professionals”, therefore given the right skill and resource support, they can transition to become a successful “Highly Skilled CEO Entrepreneur.”
This concept “Board of One” has been adopted by numerous noted and famed strategic advisors, institutional investors; in addition to 32 of the top 150 branded Private Equity firms and Family Offices.
Since implementing the “Board of One” concept in 2002, 20 clients have been recognized by fast-growing publications such as INC Magazine, as a result of the successful adoption and utilization of the “Board of One” concept.