Category Archives: Leadership

How do you Prioritize Multiple Priorities? Seven Suggestions

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Situation: A new CEO has just been promoted from COO. During the transition, this individual is responsible both for past and new duties. There is an extensive list of company priorities. How should the CEO prioritize this action list? How do you prioritize multiple priorities?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Focus on the Executive Committee first – the roles of your leadership team. This is the team that will both manage the organization and oversee the work that is being done.
  • Select your leadership team carefully – the team that will implement your agenda. They will help you make key choices and implement changes and programs. It is essential that this team present a united front as you roll out any changes.
  • As CEO, you are now accountable for the success of the company. Put issues on the table. Gather input and advice from your team. With their input, make your decision on how to move forward. Delegate responsibility and accountability. Rally the team around your decisions. Follow-up to assure that things are getting done.
  • Be focused. If you only had the resources to do three things, what would these be? What will bring the greatest both short and long-term value to the company?
  • Avoid micromanaging assigned responsibilities.
  • Bring in a consultant to assist you in implementing organizational changes that are necessary for the company – defining new roles and responsibilities and correcting behavior of team members that does not benefit the team.
  • As soon as possible, promote or hire someone to take on your old roles. You will have your hands full as CEO.

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What’s The Role as CEO? Four Pieces of Advice

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Situation: A CEO questions whether he is the right person to lead the company. The company has solid revenues and profitability, but growth is lower than expected. How can the CEO improve his situation and solidify his leadership? What’s the role as CEO?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The primary functions of the CEO are to assure the maintenance of company values, to provide vision, and to monitor resource allocation within the company.
  • Identify your strengths, and the most important areas where you need help. Create an organizational chart not of positions but of strengths that are needed within the company. Compare these positions with your own strengths, and focus your own activities on your strengths. Promote or hire talent to support you in the latter areas.
  • As you hire or promote and delegate, make sure that you are allowing those with new responsibility the latitude to run their areas of responsibility.
  • Should the CEO consider hiring a new CEO or COO? Possibly. If you do, first identify the key leadership traits that we most want to see in a candidate. If you hire a CEO, this individual should have skin in the game. They must be perceived as a leader, and there must be a clean hand-off. Consider hiring a COO. This can be someone willing to take this role with the understanding that your long-term objective is to replace yourself as CEO. A person unwilling to come on as COO and to develop into the CEO may not be the right candidate.

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How Do You Work with an Off-Shore Business Partner? Six Recommendations

Situation:  A company has an off-shore business partner. Primary concerns of the CEO involve team performance, process documentation and anticipating sales/marketing problems before they become issues. What have others found effective to monitor these areas? How do you work with an off-shore business partner?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • At the executive level, keep things simple – identifying the major goals and pieces of projects that are make or break.
  • Simplify the high level summary and assure that all aspects of the supporting activity are aligned with and support key project or company goals. Some members manage projects with reviews and updates during weekly or bi-weekly meetings.
  • The benefit of keeping it simple in your own mind is that you can always return to this simplicity when dealing with detail level queries from the partner. It keeps you grounded and on track.
  • One company uses project timelines that clearly show each of the teams where they fit into the project and how important it is for them to complete their portion of the project on time and to spec. Keep everything simple and direct.
  • Sales tracking and management are different from development projects. Monitor forecasts, pipeline, and achievement of metrics that track with the forecasts.
  • In working with an off-shore partner, organize your presentations so that the key points of emphasis are readily visible. Have back-up slides to show detailed aspects of particular projects or initiatives, and be prepared to cover the details if needed. This will help to build confidence between you and your business partner.

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Do You have a Disaster Recovery Plan? Four Recommendations

Situation: A CEO wants to be prepared in case of emergencies including water, fire, earthquake, and the possibility that owners or employees may have difficulty communicating or traveling to their offices for an extended period. What have others done to create an emergency response plan? Do you have a disaster recovery plan?

Advice of the CEOs:

  • One company developed a disaster recovery plan, including: a communication plan; employees taking notebook computers home in the evening; and data back-up and server restoration capabilities. The plan was relatively easy to build and is summarized in a 4-page document in the possession of each employee.
  • What have others done to address emergency preparedness? Answers included daily systems back-ups; if you use a web-based CRM, check whether they have a disaster recovery program; and assuring that there are sufficient cash reserves to manage through 30 days with no invoicing or collections.
  • Drafting a full emergency plan is essential. Start simply: look at the obvious risks in your location, for each risk that you identify, develop a backup or contingency strategy and put it in place, let the list of contingencies grow over time as you recognize additional risks, and start this exercise now!
  • Once you have a plan, drill the plan. Make sure that employees know what to do in a variety of emergencies so that they are prepared. This can build the confidence that your employees will be able to handle emergencies.

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How Do You On-board a New CFO – Four Imperatives

Situation: A company is hiring their first CFO. Previously, as a small company the founder and an accountant handled this responsibility. How do they integrate this key person into the company? How do you on-board a new CFO?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The company and its key players should reflect the values, needs and desires of the CEO. The talents of the CEO and CFO should complement each other. Have a clear discussion and agreement with the CFO candidate on values, role, and organizational structure before hiring or announcing anything to the company.
  • Recommended announcements and timeline: When the new CFO is announced, simultaneously present the new organization chart with broad responsibilities, but not with detailed position descriptions. Set a timeline for realignment of roles. It is not necessary to specify exact roles at the time of the announcement. Let everyone know that this is a work in progress and give a time frame within which all will be resolved.
  • Once the CFO is in place, the CEO and CFO should meet at least weekly to assure that the CFO has the support and resources needed to accomplish his/her responsibilities. All decisions within the CFO’s group, personnel responsibilities and any shifts in roles should come from the CFO, with the support of the CEO. This will help the new CFO to assimilate into the company more rapidly and will give him/her the authority needed to manage his/her organization.
  • The CEO may put the CFO in charge of areas that they want to delegate – accounting, administration, finance and contracts. The CEO should remain involved in banking relationships.

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How Do You Develop Leaders? – Five Strategies

Situation: As it has grown, a company has used talent from their home area to seed new locations around the country. As a result, leadership is now short at headquarters. What have others done to fill leadership gaps? How do you develop leaders?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Develop a formal Leadership Development Program. Identify the top leadership candidates with the company – the top 10%. Identify individual goals of these individuals and determine whether these are consistent with current and emerging company values. Clearly communicate the roles and expectations that you have for future company leaders – both the upsides and the sacrifices that you anticipate that they will have to make. Team the leadership candidates 1/1 with mentors to guide their development.
  • Consider an “internal” Board of Directors for developing leaders. Members are considered advisors to the true Board of Directors, understand company strategy, are coached on company values, and are involved in an advisory capacity in key company decisions.
  • Consider a leadership “boot camp” program to groom potential leaders and weed out those who like the idea of leadership more than the reality.
  • In the case of a very hierarchical company, the following items are involved: time, talent, defining the desired traits for key positions, identifying candidates who appear to possess these traits, assigning leadership roles to these individuals in executing the annual strategic plan – with senior managers mentoring leaders-in-training, and including training and development in individuals’ professional development plans.
  • Investigate employee assessment tools, for example the Myers-Briggs tools.

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How Do You Access Key IP? 3 Steps to the Dance

Situation:  A company is moving from a specialty solution to a complete solution. They have identified a partner with intellectual property (IP) that will help them fulfill this vision. How should the CEO approach this company to access their IP? How do you access key IP?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • There are two aspects of any deal: technical feasibility that will produce both value and the emotional needs of the principals of each company. The technical aspects are the most straightforward and easiest to value. Frequently, a favorable deal hinges not on technical feasibility, but on the desires of the principals and their ability to trust one-another.
  • If you are convinced of the value, you must convince the other party that their best option is to work with you. This accomplished, you can negotiate the specifics. Sell your vision: the technologies together are much more valuable than they are alone: 1 + 1 = 5! If control of the technology is an issue, negotiate an arrangement where they are comfortable with your control. Do you and the other party have a trusted advisor in common or is there an individual who is respected by the principals of both companies? A person like this can help communicate your good intentions.
  • If your best efforts do not produce an appealing arrangement, your fallback position may be a partnership. If the partnership is backed by modest investment with options for future purchase, this can be another way for you to eventually gain control of the technology.

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What are the Pro and Cons of Micromanaging? Three Observations

Situation: A CEO is concerned about the performance of both her company and individual employees. The employees are good, but there are many minor details of day-to-day operation that the CEO feels are important and require her oversight. How involved should the CEO be in the details of the business? What ae the pros and cons of micromanaging?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The answer to this question depends on you. What is your own priority on the use of your time? How much do you want to be involved? How confident are you in the people whom you’ve hired? Are you comfortable delegating? Do you want to stay small or scale and grow? Your answers to these questions will help you to decide where and when to increase your involvement with or oversight of the business.
  • There are both good and bad aspects of involving yourself in details. The Good Side – it communicates that you are willing to roll up your sleeves and do what it takes to get the job done. The Bad Side – don’t do your employees’ jobs for them. This is demotivating and communicates a lack of trust in their abilities. If the workload is so demanding and the benefit so great, then secure additional resources to enable employees to get the job done themselves.
  • More broadly, remember the advice of many business gurus – you increase the value of your company by getting the “U” out of your bUsiness. You may enjoy the detail of the business. However, do not let this interfere with your long term objective of having others doing the “doing” while you mature your role as manager and leader.

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How Do You Find A-Players? Six Strategies

Situation: An early stage company will be staffing-up over the next year. In the past the CEO has recruited individuals with big company experience and solid resumes, only to find that they had difficulty transitioning to the hands-on responsibility of a small company. How do you find candidates who are highly experienced but who can also excel in a small company environment? How do you find A-players?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The best candidates are not in the job-search pool. They are currently working but open to a change with new challenges. Some will wish to return to a more hands-on situation.
  • Let people know that you are looking for “the best” and have a great opportunity. Create some buzz. Go to your network and ask, “who do you know?” Don’t be shy!
  • Look for achievers – individuals with proven performance in companies of the size that you plan to be in 12-18 months and who are interested in the excitement of building that company. Check their references carefully.
  • What can the company do now, while seeking the right people? Use contractors and consultants. These people are more entrepreneurial, self-starting, and self-accountable. Monitor their work. If they are good, add them to your team as permanent employees.
  • Develop a milestone-based personnel plan as part of your business plan. For example when we hit Milestone A, we will need an operations manager. When we hit Milestone B, we will need channel or market development expertise.
  • Conduct case studies of how other companies in your or similar spaces have facilitated their scale-ups. What worked? What didn’t? Why?

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How Do You Encourage Managers to Work On vs. In the Business – Four Points

Situation:  A company’s CEO created five customer-centered divisions headed by Business Development Managers (BDMs) who oversee project management as well as business development in their markets. A year after implementation, the BDMs are more focused on managing their teams than on developing new business. How can the CEO enhance focus on business development? How do you encourage managers to work on vs. in the business?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • It appears that the BDMs are technicians. Business development (BD) isn’t their strength. People gravitate toward important/urgent activities in their comfort zone.
  • Supplement your staff with people who have a proven talent for business development. You may not need 5 people – 2 or 3 may be sufficient to support the BDMs.
  • What if our customers demand technical expertise in business development personnel? Make category expertise a requirement when hiring, in addition to experience in BD. There are specific traits that characterize successful BD personnel. Specify these traits in your hiring process and verify these abilities in candidates both by testing for these traits and through reference checks. Sandler Training has good tests for BD talent.
  • The BDMs are responsible for coordinating bidding and pricing. Should this responsibility be handed over to the new BD personnel? Not completely. You have two options. Option A – require BD personnel to coordinate with the BDMs when it comes to pricing and project delivery, or Option B – if you determine that the BD personnel need to be able to negotiate pricing on their own, tie their commission compensation 100% to margin on projects bid.

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