- “Everyone engaged in complex work needs colleagues. Just the discipline of having to put your thoughts in order with somebody else is a very useful thing.”
- Charlie Munger
Not Partners. Engaged Partners.
Value creation begins by limiting the number of companies into which a private equity firm invests, allowing senior professionals to apply concentrated efforts toward each partner company, as opposed to “overseeing” a diverse portfolio of investments. And we believe our approach to working with partner company executives – Engaged Partnership – requires a core element: having holistically oriented partners with investment and business-building capabilities and passion who can work with a company from investment through partnership. This very different approach to partnership avoids high friction “hand-offs” and most effectively builds mutual trust and respect-based relationships with company executives.
As active and engaged partners, our primary purpose is not reviewing financial results, but rather championing our management partners to success by non-intrusively adding value, minimizing distracting obligations, and eliminating artificial investor-driven timelines and constraints. Whether it is through providing access to best-in-class industry and functional resources, acting as a thoughtful and always candid sounding board, or sharing experiences learned from prior investments and studying countless businesses, we are always focused on the same mission – building long-term great enterprises in partnership with management. In particular:
- We show up for work.
We dedicate time and effort to visit our partner companies and recognize the motivational importance to employees to see all partners involved. - We communicate.
We have regular and candid dialog with our partner company executives and will always act as a thoughtful sounding board in both good and bad times. - We provide access to resources.
We make industry and functional experts available to management, but importantly, we never force management to make use of them. - We share best practices.
We act as strategic thinkers and openly share best practices and experiences learned from prior business ventures and investments. - We facilitate cross-pollination.
We facilitate interactions between CEOs and senior managers of all partner companies, as well as world-class industry experts, to share thoughts and ideas. - We develop mutual respect.
We continually strive to develop and strengthen mutual respect and deep trust with partner company executives by treating them as true partners.
As engaged partners we are deeply focused on maximizing the resources we can provide our partner companies. As a result, we continuously focus on building and deepening exclusive/advantaged relationships with best-in-class professionals in core functional areas and in our industry focus sectors. Together, these individuals comprise D Cubed’s Matrix Resource organization – with each “resource” available to our partner companies: at the election of the CEO, to work for (rather than oversee) the company executives, and generally without additional cost to the company. Matrix Resource professionals are “doers”, not supervisors – and the difference, both culturally and in value creation, can be tremendous.