Why is profitable growth so hard to achieve and sustain? Most executives manage their companies as if the solution to that problem lies in the external environment: find an attractive market, formulate the right strategy, and win new customers. But when Bain & Company’s Chris Zook and James Allen researched this question, they found that when companies fail to achieve their growth targets, 90 percent of the time the root causes are internal, not external– increasing distance from the front lines, loss of accountability, proliferation processes and bureaucracy, to name only a few. Even for healthy companies, these crises if not managed properly, stifle the ability to grow further– and can actively lead to decline. The key insight is that managing these choke points requires a ‘The Founder’s Mentality’: an insurgent’s clear mission and purpose; an unambiguous owner mindset; and a relentless obsession with the front line.