Change Agent - Issue 35

I've never been a big fan of the Olympics. To me, most of the pageantry is hackneyed and off-putting -- and I've never forgiven them for not including Ultimate Frisbee as a sport. Most of all, what's the deal with curling?

But one part of the Olympics that fascinates me is the torch relay that kicks off the event. Apparently a riff on some legend from ancient Rome (or ancient Greece, I can never remember), the torch relay involves carrying a single flame from one spot to another -- preferably a spot that's pretty far away.

Unlike every other moment of the Olympics, this one focuses all of our attention on a single person, a single detail. No multiple-event, three-ring circus here. It's one runner, one flame. If the torchbearer falls, it's a big deal. If she doesn't make it to the next runner, she lets down everyone ahead of her in line, as well as all of the runners who carried the torch before her.

When people in the workplace confront shift, rift, zooming, and all of the other challenges that make up business life, there is one thread that runs through all of the choices that they make: Either they're torchbearers, or they're not.

Over the past few months, I've spent some time working with friends at Flatiron Partners, one of the biggest Internet venture firms on the East Coast. Entrepreneurs think that the selection process used by VCs is a big mystery. They're dying to know how VC firms decide who gets the big bucks and who gets nothing. The answer is surprisingly simple.

When venture-capital firms look for entrepreneurs on whom to risk their money, they aren't searching for a great idea, or even great credentials. No, what they're searching for is this: the certainty that the person who brings them a business idea is going to carry the torch for that idea as long as it takes, that the idea will get passed on, and that the business will make it across the finish line.

The really great startup companies in Silicon Valley, the ones that overcome every obstacle and manage to persist, even when it looks as if they're going to fail -- those companies are run by torchbearers. If there is one thing that separates Silicon Valley from almost any other place I've been, it's not the technology, the traffic jams, or the lack of a decent Italian restaurant -- it's the culture. The place is teeming with torchbearers, with folks who are willing to take responsibility for carrying a flame.

As more and more of us emigrate to Free Agent Nation, a place where more and more people are their own chief executives, the trend toward rewarding torchbearers will only increase. The biggest chasm in our society has become the gap between people who embrace the torchbearer's responsibility to customers, investors, and companies, and those who are just there for the job.

A lot of folks whom I talk to speak wistfully about what they would do if they were "in charge." I've got news for them: If they're willing to be in charge, people will put them in charge! In my view, the huge rewards that we're seeing for people who are brave enough, crazy enough, and talented enough to carry the torch for a new business are entirely justified. Why? Because there aren't nearly enough torchbearers around.

Last year, more money was spent to fund new business ventures than in any other year in the history of the world. Yet a huge amount of money sat uninvested, because there was no place to invest it. Are we really out of good ideas? No way. I've got a file cabinet filled with them, and you probably know of a few as well. Is there a shortage of engineers who are capable of implementing those ideas? Nope. There are plenty of engineers too.

So, if it's not a lack of money, ideas, or engineers that is slowing down our shift to the new economy, what is it? Exactly the same thing that's holding up your company's transition to a new way of doing business -- the absence of someone who is willing to stand up, look everyone in the eye, and say, "I'll make it happen."

Here's how I know that I'm talking to a torchbearer:

First, torchbearers don't make excuses. Our current economic good times won't last forever. You won't always be able to found a company and go public in less time than it takes to have a baby. At some point, the venture-capital funds will dry up. And, when those tough times come, they will present a perfect opportunity for the pretenders to fold their tents. Filled with vitriol and busy looking for a lawyer so that they can sue someone, these entrepreneurial also-rans will find a way to blame their troubles on other people. Real torchbearers run uphill with the same grace and style that they bring to gliding downhill.

Second, torchbearers often attract a crowd. People are fascinated by folks who are willing to carry responsibility. All too often, people add their own burdens to those that their leader must already carry -- but, in any case, they're usually delighted to follow along. And sometimes these folks are loyal and hard-working enough to follow a torchbearer uphill as well as downhill.