There is no lack of coverage of when Private Equity is done wrong. John Oliver, by himself, has numerous well-regarded pieces on the topic. This is not dissimilar to when bad venture capitalists or angel investors tarnish the reputations of investors in general. And this reporting is important. We should know about bad actors, how to avoid them, and call shame on them!

Good news is every bit as important, but doesn’t tend to get as much coverage. That is why it was so refreshing to hear a story of private equity done right, where Jeff Tobin shares how he and his firm helped a 40-year-old education company transform itself to serve a lot more students & school systems, and serve them better. Listen to the story to hear about helping his entrepreneurs…

• Identify their strengths and weaknesses.
• Bringing in experts to fill in the team’s weaknesses.
• Crafting an adaptable plan to improve that uses clear metrics so everyone knows what does and does not work.
• Appreciating that when embarking on something new, there will be a lot of experimentation and that most experiments “fail.” But with clear measurement and support of the team, that failure leads to learning, which leads to success.
• Embracing the philosophy of Kaizen or continuous improvement.

Throughout the interview you can hear Jeff’s sincere respect and admiration for the entrepreneurs he works with and the customers they serve. You can see it is about building up the team.