Fractured belief left our team reeling. I've been fighting it ever since.
I know what it feels like when your team loses its bearing. Debates that go in circles. Offsites that leave you unsatisfied. Competitors who close the gap. Or widen it. The sinking feeling of wondering if your winning streak is finally up.
That’s why I do this work.
"Before working with John, we were stalling on major decisions despite serious efforts to find our direction. John pushed back on our thinking and brought clarity, giving us the confidence we needed to finally move forward."
I spent years looking at things backwards.
Nothing schools you faster than building a business.
When I co-founded a startup, we needed a CMO, and who better to step in than me, a former financial analyst, who could analyze and optimize with data? So our thinking went.
I was effective for a while, until I wasn't. In hindsight, it was a classic case of going tactical before going fundamental. We ended up selling the company for a meager profit.
I walked away knowing very little. But I needed to understand what happened. Not just for my sake, for the sake of every team I'd work with after.
So I tuned out all the popular marketing voices.
I had no interest in gurus offering cavalier prescriptions or the tactic of the month. Instead, I started exploring ideas from any genre useful to understanding first principles: category design, philosophy, systems theory, and the strategy literature, for starters.
I wasn't interested in how to "optimize" what was already working. All I cared about were the fundamental questions: What game do we need to play? How do we win? And most importantly, how do we get everyone to believe the answers?
In my next few VP roles, I put theory into practice. But the challenges kept coming: COVID splintered leadership at one company. At another, our product was too prescient for the market. At a third, stagnation left us vulnerable to swifter, gutsier competition.
There was always some unique, unforeseen dilemma that rocked the boat. Every one of these companies wanted to create lasting value, but it became clear we were losing for one reason. We weren't creating the right conditions within leadership for serious collaboration or tenacious decision making.
The default was a no-man's land of glitchy communication and indecisive banality where greatness wasn't allowed to happen. Each team hoped they would win. But the conditions made that impossible.
That's why I believe businesses have an obligation to pursue excellence.
Not just profit. Not just survival. Excellence.
When a team has the resources, talent, and opportunity to build something genuinely valuable, missing out on your potential is a loss for your team and your customers who what you uniquely offer. The world doesn't need more businesses that merely exist. It needs more businesses that can tap into the value that was always there.
The more I studied and tested, the more I understood what it actually takes to build shared belief, and what happens when you don't.
No one signs up to be the lightweight in their industry.
Flag & Frontier exists because I've lived through the pain of fractured belief, and experienced what's possible on the other side. Now, you no longer have to give up your window of opportunity while the world moves on.
– John Rougeux, Founder
Mountains help me think.
Colorado Springs, CO is home because the outdoors is where I do some of my best thinking. And my best hanging out with my family.
Putting miles on the mountain bike, attempting to ski the glades without making close friends with a tree, and working through my bucket list of hiking all fifty 14ers have a way of clearing the static in my own head.
Excursions rarely go as planned for this amateur adventurer.
Breaking Static is where I share my beliefs about strategy on Substack.
Weekly essays on practical strategy, building belief, and what it takes to come out ahead when the rules keep changing. Start here and subscribe when you’re ready for more.
