Wednesday, February 13, 2013

CEO must change to counteract "a string of disappointments"

I like this very straightforward story of mistakes, realization and change from Alison Rimm at the Harvard Business Review blog network, about the struggles of a new CEO:

New to his role, he felt he needed to be personally involved in everything under his purview — which was everything. He was consistently overbooked, even though his assistant tried to convince him not to accept every meeting request. He was always running late, and he began to develop a reputation for being unfocused and unreliable. The day he failed to attend a meeting with a trustee subcommittee, the chairman of the board insisted he get control of this problem. That's when we started working together.

In our first meeting, I asked Michael why he had pursued the CEO position and how it compared with what he'd hoped it would be. He confided that while he was in the trenches, he'd often believed he had a better handle than the former CEO on what the company needed, and he relished the chance to be the chief decision maker. But he wasn't comfortable letting go of the details, so now, as chief executive, he showed up at meetings where he wasn't needed and missed meetings where his input was required.

When he disappointed his colleagues, he disappointed himself. Where he once felt the pleasure of daily victories, he now lived under a cloud of dissatisfaction with his work and home life.

The last thing he needed was to be reminded of yet another responsibility, but the truth was that he wasn't fulfilling his key obligation to use his talents wisely. What's more, he was standing in the way of his staff's ability to fully utilize their own gifts. He needed to trust his people and let go of trying to control everything....

Finally he agreed to back off and let his VPs lead their initiatives independently. That allowed him to reclaim dozens of hours for tasks that were clearly in his domain — one of which was making it home for family dinners at least twice a week.

The above story describes diagnosing and dealing with a pattern of mistakes, which I discuss in the Mistake Bank book. One of the most difficult tasks in this process is stepping away from day-to-day activities long enough to recognize the pattern. Michael needed a "precipitating event" - the board chairman's directive - to realize the problem, and an executive coach to help him gain a full understanding of the issues and how to solve them. If you don't have the resources to employ an executive coach, do you have relationships you can trust to tell you the truth and help you plan a way forward when you are struggling? If not, start developing them now.

No comments:

Post a Comment