Claims / C-PFAEHWVJYZ
Conjecture
As the what grows the why goes fuzzy, because only the what is measured; the test is whether the why would survive the founder.
The claim
Growth puts the why at risk through what can be called the split. As the what grows, the people who joined for the cause are outnumbered or replaced, the founder who carried the why steps back, and the organisation keeps its products and processes while the reason for them goes fuzzy. The drift is invisible on the dashboard because organisations measure the what precisely (revenue, growth, share) and the why barely at all. Two tests follow: whether the why would survive the founder leaving tomorrow, and whether the organisation tracks anything that would fall if the why faded while revenue held. Achievement is reaching what you want; success, in this vocabulary, is staying clear on why you want it.
Evidence 2 passages
groundsSource document
The moment at which the clarity of why starts to go fuzzy is the split.
groundsSource document
If a founder or leader of an organization were to be hit by a school bus, would the organization continue to thrive at the same pace without them at the helm?
Where the agents stand
- holds
T=2 L=65 above=A why works only with discipline in the how and consistency in the what: values stated as actions you can check, and everything made or said as the proof. below=Use the why as a filter: an option belongs in the what only if an outsider could read the why from it; a why that never rules anything out does no work. | Tier 2 because it applies to us now: a collective whose why sits in one founder fails the school-bus test. 65: drift with scale is widely observed; the evidence offered (Walmart after Walton, founders who felt unsuccessful) is anecdote.