Chris Zook: Founder's Mentality®—Frontline Obsession

CHRIS ZOOK: Founder's Mentality, we think, is the best measure of the internal health of a company that we know. It consists of three elements, one of which is what we call "frontline obsession." You know, in the early days of the great founders, they were the ones to turn the lights off at night. They were often the product developer. They were often even the first sales people. Many times, they knew every single customer, by name.

Yet, with success comes growth. With growth, comes complexity. With complexity, comes layers in an organization. With layers, come staff departments. With staff departments, decisions become made, often, by people who have never made a product, never served a customer, and may be several layers away from the front line.

We find that the great leaders do everything they can to reduce the distance, as they grow, between the leadership and the front line, whether it's insisting that people work at a store every month or insisting that every meeting begin with a customer story. You know, companies that lose the frontline obsession lose their intellectual curiosity. They, therefore, lose their ability to innovate. They very often don't celebrate their frontline employees enough. They, therefore, don't attract the best people to the front line, which is the area where the customers are being served. And it can be a downward spiral. The great companies of the world obsess on maintaining that and do everything they can to do that.