Dr. Earl R. Smith II
Managing Partner, The Federal Circle
DrSmith@Dr-Smith.com
Dr-Smith.com
Most of my early-stage advisory engagements initially focus on helping the ‘CEO’ understand what it means to be a CEO. That understanding – or lack thereof – can have a determining impact on a company’s future.
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Within the dim and fading mists of the history of every start-up lies the seed of its own destruction … or at least of its own stunted growth. As errors go, this ‘myth of fingerprints’ is one of the most frequent misunderstandings of what a growing company needs and what will happen if it does not get what it needs.
Let’s start with a general description. A founder and a few small team members are running a company. They are successful in getting the thing off the ground by hard work and very long hours. The team’s dedication and persistence is paying off … the company is growing. The Founder adopts the title CEO (sometimes CEO and President, which I have always found a bit much or, worse yet, Chairman and CEO) and becomes the ‘Chief of Everything’. The rest of the team are similarly blessed with high sounding titles right out of larger corporate culture. The chief recruiter is given the title Vice President of Human Resources. The controller becomes the Chief Financial Officer. There may even be a CIO or CTO in a company running less than $5,000,000 in annual revenue. Quite often there is no Chief Operating Officer (COO). I have never encountered a team with a Chief Administrative Officer … even the title CAO.
So what’s the problem Chief? Well, there are two. The first, and a subject of a later column, is that people get titles far beyond their experiences, capabilities and competencies … and that creates real problems later on. The second, and my focus here, is that the job description for the CEO as ‘Chief of Everything’ becomes inherently limiting of the company’s future. Here is a way that you, CEO, might understand what I am getting at. Let’s take a quick trip into the realm of complexity theory for a fresh, and possibly liberating, view of the landscape.
Find some quiet time for reflection … sit down in your most comfortable chair … clear your mind of the day-to-day minutia … then try to see your Company as a complex self-organizing system … a living thing with its own needs independent of yours … in other words your ‘child’. Then introduce the idea that ‘organizations evolve more quickly than the people in them’. Your child is evolving more quickly than you, as its parent, are capable of changing to meet its needs.
Here are some of the problems that your child might be having with you.
- The Personality Cult and its corrosive effects … if its all about you then …
- The Peter Pan Syndrome … if you won’t grow up then …
- The Napoleonic Complex … if it is all about your vision then …
There are good reasons why the CEO has evolved into the Chief Business Development Officer in successful privately owned companies. Very good reasons why that person has to distance themselves from the day to day operations … delegating those responsibilities to first a COO and then a CAO. And this means that a CEO has to decide to be a CEO and stop being a COO. If a CEO does not see or accept these reasons, most often the effect is to limit the growth of the company … for filling these needs is central to that growth and the CEO is the only one to do it.
The CEO has to manage the evolution of the team … make the hard decisions. For example, some of the people who got you to the early successes are not those who will help you take the Company to a sixty or one hundred million dollar run rate.
In short, a CEO has to put personal evolution on the fast track … and get that evolution mostly right … in order to help the Company to realize its potential. But how do you learn what you have never directly experienced? How does a CEO gather the wisdom? The solution is as hard to manage as it is simple to state. You get yourself a network of mentors … individuals who have climbed the mountain you are seeking to conquer. But how? Here is one recipe that I have seen work well.
- First find an individual with a long track record of success and develop a close personal relationship
- Make sure that the track record includes multiple successes in the CEO role. In other words, avoid the ‘they that can’t do teach’ trap
- Engage that person in a highly formal way … introduce them into your corporate culture
- Ask that person to assemble an Advisory Board of mentors in various areas … sales, marketing, operations, etc.
- Then use the combined wisdom and experience of the Board as both a guide and accelerator of your own development.
Two pieces of advice here. First, don’t try to build the Board yourself. If you do, you will most likely take the easy way out and build a ‘soft’ Board that will not challenge you. Second, clear the time to interact with and learn from the Board members. It will take far more time that you initially think. To have an Advisory Board is not the same as benefiting from one. I have seen many that essentially do nothing and are paid for it.
The lesson here is clear. A CEO must run to keep up with the evolving needs of the Company. Failure means that your child will end up digging ditches instead of moving mountains.
© Dr. Earl R. Smith II
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Related Articles:
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Executive Coaches as Mentors and Advisors
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Three Ways Not to Be a Great CEO
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Coaching and Self-Knowledge
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Executive Coaches as Advisors
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Enhancing Your Performance with Business Coaching
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10 Responses to “To ‘E’ or to ‘O’?”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Michael Maynard wrote:
I prepare for the worse case scenario and keep a torch in my bedside cabinet. In the end if you live alone, you are alone even though you can reach out to people with telephones and internet; you are ultimately responsible. So be prepared for anything.
Seema Raghunath wrote:
Hi Dr Smith,
I started a small company Avenue Makers catering to HR needs (Recruitment and training ) when i was 21 and ran that for 7 years ….when others from college were scanning the market for jobs .It starts with just a DO IT attitude.The longer you mull ,think ,worry of pro and cons and try maximum risk management your passion for it, dies a premature death .There are some things like all good things that need to be capitalised when the energies are up and positive – too much time on anything is destructive is my learning .Either you like it and want to do it – or its best to drop and leave .
Am not saying its got be irrational – homework, ontacts ,networking ,brand building and even exaggeration at the start helps .When business catches up all that was part of plan and not yet in actual – becomes a reality .
But you need to believe that you will get there .Blinkers help a lot .No diversions .Innovation and creative presentation too is important to mark your spot .
Above all relationship management .More business comes only if who you liaised with want to see you again .And PLEASE pls do reinvent yourself every 2-3 years .Thats the cycle of change .Stagnation is also a guaranteed ,ta ta goodbye.
I can give an example of what that reinvention / inspiration means – the response can get tiresomely long here ,so anyone who wants to know can write to me and i will respond with the example .
Seema R
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Joan Hall wrote:
I enjoyed the article very much. Great information!
Gurinder Ahluwalia wrote:
After consulting with quite a few start-ups, besides my own boutiqe marketing strategy firm, i have come to clusion that a start up generally follows a trend; It begins on a happy note (trail customers) followed by a silence of 4-5 months that last upto the 18th month. Its from there the true test of an entreprise starts. Those businesses that are based on hard work coupled with understanding of the markets take off in the months betwen 22-27. If an entreprise fails that period better close it and move on.
These observations are based on indian context which is a developing market having strong growth rate and large concentration of small enterprises.
Its great to serve the customer than entertaining a group of sitting people in some office. Pls see my blog for few glimpses of SMEs in India.
Paul A Coulter wrote:
Twenty Second Tweak® #5 – by Paul Arthur Davenport Coulter
Darkness or Light
Are you illuminating light, certain, persuaded and sure,
Or reflecting light as you struggle, survive and endure?
Please be patient if my judgment seems hurtful and snide.
My attempt with my questions is simply not to let you hide.
My queries, tough, yet light, could spring emotions, possibly a grin.
Bringing up emotion is your paradigm’s interpretations welling up within.
Like an orange, when squeezed, what’s inside can be foretold.
Possibly, we’ll discover, we’re similar to oranges, if I may be so bold!
What if what’s outside of us is a reflection of what’s going on inside?
Would this awareness that our emotional interpretations internally reside,
Fed by fears, doubts and personal esteem issues, change your perspective?
Do our outer emotions expressed, cover up self-critical internal invective,
Erecting illusionary roadblocks, creating resistance or deeper paralysis?
So, perhaps, while we’re at it, let’s do a bit more analysis.
For instance, who is responsible for our emotional light being off or on?
Who is responsible for our sensations – you, me, or others we come upon?
If others have access to dim our lights and take our personal power,
Who’s in control of the switch that activates the light from our light tower?
Are we letting illusions of emotional darkness blind us from our real might?
Be mindful, darkness vanishes when and where YOU choose to shine your light!
Christine Hueber wrote;
I turned on the lights by focusing on my goal.
Best,
Christine Hueber
Engaging Social Media Relationship Marketing
Kenneth Larson wrote;
I have had many entrepreneurs find their way to me through SCORE and my associated web site over the last 4 years. It has been a pleasure providing volunteer services to them all.
I agree heartily with Reno’s perspective on helping without doing it for them.
Reno Lovison wrote:
I have found when helping others it does very little good to show them the light switch. What helps is standing beside them while they fumble around. At the risk of mixing metaphors, my hands and feet are still scorched from walking through the fire. In short I found it helpful in the long run to make my own mistakes but the support of others makes you feel like less of an idiot.
Michael Field wrote:
Thank you for a very interesting post. Essential reading for any start-up entrepreneur.