More than thirty thousand people attend Invest Fest. Serena Williams headlines for the first time. A grievance the founders had aired against the city of Atlanta closes onstage with the mayor. By every operating measure available, the event is a success. Three days after it ends, one of the founders of Earn Your Leisure is on a podcast telling a critic he is not qualified to have an opinion. Six days after that, he walks part of it back.

This episode examines what happens when an organization changes what it is without announcing the change. Scale can prove demand and durability while leaving a different question unresolved: what relationship does the audience believe it has with the enterprise? When stakeholders keep describing the same tension, the first task is to find out whether they are naming a change the organization made and never said out loud. The most expensive response to criticism is winning an argument the organization should have been studying.

Read the companion essay, "Invest Fest Can Change Its Strategy. It Cannot Rewrite Its Record." https://www.onrepute.com/p/invest-fest-can-change-its-strategy

More from On Repute at https://www.onrepute.com.

On Repute is written and presented by Shrita Hernandez. The thinking, the writing, and the experience behind every episode are mine. Season One's visual edition is presented by a digital avatar built from my photograph and speaking in my recorded voice. Illustrative scenes are generated.