Dr. Earl R. Smith II

By Dick Stieglitz, PhD
Business Consultant, Author & Motivational Speaker

The speaker opened his presentation to a group of small business CEOs with a challenge: ”If a bomb exploded right here, right now, who would replace you as the executive leader of your company, and how well would they perform?” Most CEOs acknowledged that they had no clear successor, and the few who had designated one expressed substantial doubts about his or her ability to grow the company. Even though my company was seventeen years old at the time, I was in the majority who didn’t know who their successor would be. My company probably would have disintegrated if I had been hit by the proverbial truck.

It was a jolting wake-up call for me. Like most CEOs, I was focused on growing the company and streamlining operations to increase profitability. I fantasized about the cash I would receive when I sold the company, but I had done little to build a management team that was capable of succeeding without me. When I returned to my office that afternoon, I e-mailed the top people in the company and asked: “If I got hit by a truck on the way home tonight, what part of our operations would be your biggest problem in the morning?” Their responses were intense and spanned a wide range of areas.

We compiled the responses in a written plan, and prioritized actions to address concerns held by multiple members of the management team. The most common concerns were about my relationships with key clients and strategic partners, with the company’s outside Board members, and with the CFO relative to the company’s financial management processes. It had taken me years to build those vital relationships, and letting go of them was difficult. However, after a year of conscious effort to share the relationships with the management team, I was surprised that the company increased its growth rate and was more profitable. The management team expanded existing client relationships and made better financial decisions. In addition, I was able to reduce my workweek to four days (and after the second year to three days), and apply more of my time to find and cultivate new clients. The employees joked that the company operated better than when I worked full time! That may or may not have been true, but clearly my company was stronger because it could operate without me and it commanded a higher price in an M&A transaction.

It may seem paradoxical, but your company would be stronger and more valuable if it could operate without you. More than ever before, relationships propel growth in today’s global economy. One individual, even someone as plugged-in as an effective CEO, can cultivate only a relatively small number of relationships. Therefore, sustained growth depends on transferring current client and operational responsibilities entirely to the management team, and freeing yourself as CEO to pursue new clients, strategic partners, and markets.

Tame the No-one-can-do-it-as-good-as-I-can dragon by ensuring your team can operate effectively without you, and concurrently prepare yourself for the new opportunities coming your way. As the leader of a business organization, expanding your success in a changing world depends on your answers to the following questions: Whose job am I doing today? Who can I transfer these tasks to? What new things should I be learning? What new opportunities should I be preparing for? and When should I leave? Highly successful executives ask themselves these questions regularly, and use the answers to change their behaviors.

Dick Stieglitz consults with small business owners about improving operations and preparing for M&A transactions, and is author of the book Taming the Dragons of Change in Business.

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