The Pre-mortem exercise is a duty of the founder-designer role

The problem

Founders have a strong vision and passion — generally a great thing. That energy can also bring risks that can put the startup growth at risk. This essay supports founders — helps them to be aware of their cognitive biases.

The viewpoint

This short essay was based on the following quotation from Michael Dearing (Harrison Metal). Michael indicates how founders can manage their idealistic plans using the premortem exercise; as a way to practice the idea of shock absorbers. Shock absorbers against what? In the case of the founder, their cognitive biases.

Next, I have found a related situation from 1985 at Intel — when Andy Grove and Gordon Moore had a major responsibility in influencing the future of Intel, when they took Intel out of the memory chips production business.

The premortem as shock absorbers for founder’s biases

“I think the other technique that I like to do with founders is let’s do a pre mortem. Let’s admit now that we failed. And let’s forecast what it is that would have gone wrong to cause our death. And if we can do that openly and honestly and make a list of what those deadly risks are facing us in our venture, we may decide to bail we may decide to keep going, but we can’t keep going without building shock absorbers for those risks.” (Michael Dearing @ Greylock 2015, 34min32sec)

The consideration of cognitive biases applicable at a full-scale execution

Andy’s passage about Intel struggling with their execution bias/mindset and potential 10x external market force

“I remember a time in the middle of 1985, after this aimless wandering had been going on for almost a year. I was in my office with Intel’s chairman and CEO, Gordon Moore, and we were discussing our quandary. Our mood was downbeat. I looked out the window at the Ferris wheel of the Great America amusement park revolving in the distance, then I turned back to Gordon and I asked, “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?” Gordon answered without hesitation, “He would get us out of memories.” I stared at him, numb, then said, “Why shouldn’t you and I walk out the door, come back and do it ourselves?” [Andy Grove @ Only the Paranoid Survive, p.89]

On the possibility of the above passage not being realistic or meaningful because Intel was a major grown-up company — One could argue that Andy’s story is a metaphorical situation created to illustrate the problem. However, as I read the whole book, it’s clear that the subject of the book is exactly about the problem when leadership (and its many employees) is executing in a mode unable to see the market signals when a 10x competitive force is approaching. For Andy, Intel had the data — sales people and middle-managers knew what was going on. Still, the coordination and successes of a company deploying execution at full scale can create strong biases. Therefore, their leadership had a big challenge at hand — to break their own biases, to accept their cognitive dissonance mode.

Generalization

The founder-designer name

I was thinking of the term founder-designer; because there is an early design phase going before startups find product-market fit. It could be argued that when a company is running at full execution, such as the case of Intel, founders are not founder-designers anymore. That they are instead executives.

However, I find that Intel’s situation (facing a 10x force of a competition) pushes the company to turn executives into founder-designers again. It is applicable because they had to enter into a new mission — of figuring out what to do, such as pivoting the whole business.

Working reference

Greylock Partners. 2015. Blitzscaling 03: Michael Dearing on Capitalism, Creativity, and Creative Destruction. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vCdfa_aeI8