Ceos Doing Their Job Better
Bill Warner Thursday, January 03, 2008
Sometimes when CEOs do what they are supposed to do, they still don’t get the results they expect. What follows are a few examples from real life situations Paladin have been involved in solving.
This CEO developed a new vision for her company and shared it with her team not once, but several times. She even gave each of her employees a book on the topic of vision and mission with solid reasons for and benefits of a vision and mission focus. We later met with several of the key employees and asked them to state the company vision and mission. Not a single person could give us the answer. The moral of the story is that the CEOs can’t just tell the vision; they need to live the vision and demand that all the employees do the same.
Another CEO could not figure out why productivity was sliding away. The company was working into new markets and delivering new products. They had the right people – people who had been successful with other products in other markets. We asked about training and the CEO said that every employee knew they had the ability to get two weeks of training each year. The CEO didn’t know how many employees had taken advantage of the training allowance, so we asked him to check. To the surprise of this CEO not a single employee had taken advantage their training allowance. The moral of the story is that the CEO must motivate people to go to class, not just offer the opportunity.
Then there is the CEO who swore he was delegating responsibility and accountability. We asked him to give us a few examples of real situations where he delegated. Then we talked to the employees he had delegated to. They all confirmed that the CEO delegated well and that he said he was delegating responsibility and accountability. Some said he said he was delegating responsibility and authority. They said that the CEO wanted the employees to review their decisions and actions with him before they took action. But, then we heard the bottom line. The employees felt that the CEO “always” changed the employee’s decisions. The moral of the story is that by changing the decisions, the CEO really had not delegated the accountability or authority.
One CEO we worked with a few months ago told us how she was a great relationship builder. She talked about her skills in sales and business development. We were working with her on sales volume issues and asked her about her networking activities. She said, “networking?” She didn’t attend any networking events or business associations. The moral of the story is that she didn’t use her relationship building skills to the fullest – to grow her opportunity base.
Last, but not least, there was the country gentleman who ran a substantial family business. He was also having trouble with sales. We started investigating the situation and discovered that the sales force did not have a sales quota. We asked him why the sales team didn’t have objectives. His answer was a simple, “they know what we need to do to keep the door open.” On further discussion we found out that there was a sales quota for new sales people that went from $5,000 to $20,000 to $50,000 per month for their first three months on the job. The problem was that after that, they simply had to do “their best” to achieve better than $50,000 per month. Are you surprised to hear that his sales volume was flat for the past three years? The moral of the story is that the CEO must set goals and objectives – in this case some stretch goals each year.
The bottom line is that in completing your CEO job responsibilities, there is usually a better way or a next step you can take to do better.
Filed Under: Business Operations, Business Coaching & Leadership Skills
Bill Warner is the Managing Partner of Paladin and Associates, a business consulting firm in the Research Triangle Park area of central North Carolina, and is the Chairman of the Triangle Accredited Capital Forum, an angel investor network with over one hundred members throughout the southeast.
Bill Warner is the Managing Partner of Paladin and Associates, a business consulting firm in the Research Triangle Park area of central North Carolina, and is the Chairman of the Triangle Accredited Capital Forum, an angel investor network with over one hundred members throughout the southeast.
