Situation: A CEO has a key employee who wants a higher level of responsibility. Currently this employee is primarily focused on business development. He’s good at this but wants a higher level of experience. The CEO agrees. How do you develop an employee to the next level?

Advice from the CEOs:

• If you ask this individual what needs to be done, what happens?
  • Revenue is number one. This is where he is focused, but he wants more than this from his role.
  • If this is also the CEO’s primary objective then the CEO needs to back off and direct him to split his time between closing high level opportunities and training his direct reports to be able to close lower-level opportunities on their own.
• To the CEO – thinking about your own experience, how did you mature to a higher level when you had primary responsibility for business development?
  • Answer: I built and trained staff to do this and delegated these responsibilities to them.
  • Allow this individual and other key managers within the company to do the same thing, and coach them along the way.
  • Empower this individual to build his staff and enable them to take on more of the functions that he no longer wants to handle himself. Allow him to prioritize his time to focus on: hiring and training of his key staff and coaching and supervision as they grow into their new roles.
• Consider this solution as a larger project manager role. Take a key product and empower this individual to design, build and manage the organization to deliver this product.
• To frame this solution short-term, start with a 1-on-1. Ask about his vision – what he wants as his role and how he sees building this.
  • Follow by laying this out in terms of the company’s objectives – be specific as to what this looks like.
  • Look for a win / win reconciliation between the CEO’s and the employee’s visions that meet both of their objectives. Get on the same page with this individual, so that this fulfills both of your needs.

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