Do you belong to any of these groups and are about to launch into the planning phase of setting up your own Firm?
Group 1
Do you still feel like you ‘owe’ your former employer an unreasonable level of loyalty? When planning out your new Firm’s operations, are you finding yourself thinking mostly of processes and behaviour that greatly mimic what you had in place at your former Firm? Do you tend to almost immediately label the way you used to do things at your former firm as the ‘right/only way’? Do you see your future successful firm as being surprisingly similar to your previous one? If you were honest with yourself, do you find yourself using language like “how we used to do it” a few more times than gives you comfort?
Group 2
Alternatively, did you hate your former employer so much that you have ‘unrighteous’ thoughts when you think of them? Smoke in your eyes and a lump in your throat when you think of people still in the Firm? If you were honest with yourself, would you admit that you were hurt, maybe humiliated while working there and are still not over it? Have you promised yourself to create the direct opposite Firm to the one you were in? Do you find that your language in relation to your new Firm’s identity has the words ‘ will not’ featuring a little more than you are comfortable with?
Gaining a clear objective view of ‘things’, one that puts the past at its rightful place of ally, ends up being the first and, in my view, most important phase of a new firm’s brand and business strategy development process. It tends to, for at least over 80% of my clients, always begin with seeking clarity, unravelling their spaghetti and identifying a solid foundation on which to build their future Firm.
What to do?
While often unpleasant, it is important to take an honest look at what the real story is for you and take time to invest in processing yourself out of your ‘Lot’s wife’ situation.
Identify what can be helpful to your Firm and thus be carried forward, and what is just baggage, and then file that away for later use.
Give yourself and your Firm’s potential stakeholders the benefit of an authentic target/dream and then a challenging strategic commercial approach that is tailored to making those dreams and that vision come to pass.
Please give your Firm, and dream, the benefit of a clean slate
