Why Are Startup Founders So Bad at Changing Their Own Companies?

As it happens, I'm just now reading about General Grant's difficulties in changing the culture of the Army of the Potomac. He never quite did, really. The war would have been significantly shortened if he had managed that trick.

It's extraordinarily hard to change a culture. If there are specialists now who aren't total cranks, bring 'em on.

Everyone is bad at changing themselves. A company is a system where the individual parts are people. Systems are built with a purpose. Changing the system means changing the purpose, often requiring exchanging old parts for new and completely revamping the system.

Creating vision for this re-design requires distance which most CEOs don't have as they are too embroiled with the day to day maintenance of the existing system, by definition.