MANAGEMENTneeds. I recognise this sounds harsh; it is. Of course,
every organisation needs professional managers, and
many of the great value-creation stories of business can
be traced to their efforts. But we have to be honest: If we
can point to companies that are undermanaged, we must
also point the finger at companies that are overman-
aged, where the professional-managerial class appears
to spend as much time perpetuating its own agenda as
it does supporting the front line.
As part of the ongoing research effort for our book,
The Founder’s Mentality, we’ve studied why companies
retain or lose the characteristics that help them avoid
growth-killing complexity and stay focussed on their
insurgent mission to serve customers. Our surveys, re-
search and extensive interviews suggest that this sense
of mission fades first and fastest at the upper and middle
layers of the company as they become diluted with pro-
fessional managers.
Professional managers tend to worry most about
stakeholders somewhere in their own office. They are
more likely to tell their family about face time with the
CEO than about solving some faceless customer’s prob-
lem. Avoid becoming a dinner table boast and instead
spend your time maintaining the energy and sense of
mission of the frontline employees who devote their day
to serving customers or supporting those who do.Laminate Your “Strategy on a Page”
and Find Joy in Talking About It
for Thousandth Time
The best CEOs create some sort of strategy on a
page. I’ve known some who laminate it to survive
the 1,000 conversations they initiate. They con-
stantly remind everyone what matters in the sim-
plest terms possible. How a CEO spends his or her
own time sends a powerful message about what
matters to the business, but that doesn’t let them
off the hook on the boring part of the job: They
still must repeat that message over and over again.
We even argue that CEOs should focus on a
“strategy on a hand” (which liberates them from
their laminates). The thumb represents a simple,
jargon-free description of “why we exist”, and the
fingers are the three to four ways the company
must excel to make that happen. At Indian con-
sumer products company CavinKare, the thumb
is “Whatever a rich man enjoys, the common man
should be able to afford, and our job is to find a
way to solve this.” At one Brazilian retailer, it’s “to
give aspiring lower-class consumers the opportu-
nity to own furniture, ‘white goods’ and consumer
electronics by helping them solve their financing
needs”. At Google, it would be “to organise the
world’s information and make it universally ac-
cessible and useful”.
The best CEOs instinctively distil an often
complex strategy into a few clear elements thatally the ones getting funded.
The problem with the first three of those tasks: It can
be incredibly boring. The same messages must be repeat-
ed again and again ad nauseam. But the best CEOs resist
the desire to chase the next shiny object. They stick mania-
cally to their communication role to guarantee that the
strategy is baked into frontline routines and behaviours.
And just because it’s repetitive doesn’t mean it’s easy.
First-time CEOs often feel like their own company is
conspiring to drown out those messages. Based on our
research and decades of experience working with CEOs,
here are six tips for CEOs who want to get the boring –
and most important – stuff done:
Liberate Yourself from Your Own Staff
Your time and energy are your most valuable resources.
Focus them on what’s most important and start saying
“no” to people – starting with your immediate staff. The
average CEO inherits a staff committed to serving the
institutional requirements of the office of CEO, not the
CEO’s strategic agenda. If you don’t ruthlessly protect
your time, you will watch your calendar rapidly fill up with
retirement parties, ribbon cuttings and other corporate
tasks that have nothing to do with advancing the strategy.
Many CEOs apply a 60/40 rule. They devote 60 per
cent of their time to “must-do” tasks like governance
and investor relations and the
other 40 per cent to personal
focus on strategic execution.
And they constantly review
the 60 per cent to decide if
really need to do them or
can delegate them to others.
One pharmacy retail chain
CEO, who wasn’t particularly
good at investor relations,
simply hired people who were
better and entrusted them
with that duty.
Disentangle Yourself
from the Byzantine
Bickering of the Profes-
sional-managerial Class
Most companies have a pro-
fessional managerial class
that absorbs way too much
time and energy and distracts
CEOs – and others – from fo-
cussing on customers and the
front line. CEOs can waste a
massive amount of time sim-
ply tending to the egos and
petty squabbles of profes-
sional managers – time better
spent connecting directly with
the front line and solving their
IF YOU DON’T
RUTHLESSLY
PROTECT YOUR TIME,
YOU WILL WATCH
YOUR CALENDAR
RAPIDLY FILL
UP WITH RETIREMENT
PARTIES, RIBBON
CUTTINGS AND OTHER
CORPORATE TASKS
THAT HAVE NOTHING
TO DO WITH
ADVANCING THE
STRATEGY
82 IBUSINESS TODAYIAugust 11I 2019