CEO Forum III

This past week HTG hosted our CEO Forum III in sunny Tampa Florida. We had 20 company principals join us for a day and a half of lively discussion about what it means to become a CEO in an SMB IT company today. We are grateful to ConnectWise for hosting our first day, and enabling us to have a discussion around what the role is, and how to create a structure around the CEO in the form of a leadership team. We discussed selection, compensation, evaluation and all things leadership team.

One of our featured sessions involved Arnie Bellini, CEO at ConnectWise, sharing his vision around what role a CEO fulfills. You can catch the presentation on ConnectWise University, but he really simplified it into two key areas (which I believe are right on the money):

• Strategy/Vision/Dreaming
• People/Counseling/Leading

When we take a deeper look - one of these areas involves the future and setting direction. A CEO is responsible to provide the general movement a company will take. They are not focused on the details - the how - but they are to provide the where and the why. Strategy does not just happen. It is intentional and takes effort. Arnie challenged the group to make the time to dream and be very clear about where we will lead our company.

The second area is all about the people. We will go nowhere that our people don't go. It is the role of the CEO to lead people down that path. We have to focus on helping them work at the level they are capable which is often more than they believe possible. At times we need to help them play nicely together in the sandbox. But always we have to remember that people are the main job of all we do - at every level. My experience is that every minute invested in meaningful relationships will always be a good investment.

Day two was focused on people and how we interact with each other. Dr Larry Little was with us - author of the book "Make a Difference" (which is available on LuLu.com) - and he led us through great learnings on how we are wired and more importantly how different personalities relate to each other. We learned that each of us are some combination of lion, monkey, camel or turtle - each with unique qualities and characteristics that make us who we are. The magic was not so much in the animal labels as in the communication it enabled. We were able to relate the different personality types to each other and talk freely about things that occur between them. It truly was an eye opening experience for the group.

This year HTG is focused on the fourth pillar in our trek toward excellence as IT companies. We are working on the top of the pyramid - the most challenging area - people. We identified this as a core area of competency we all need to achieve to be able to truly lead best in class organizations. We will be continuing our quest to learn more about leadership, management and people skills this year. Dr Little gave us a great starting point - it is essential we understand what makes people tick - and then learn to manage the interactions that will occur between folks who are not wired quite the same - or maybe are wired too much the same - or maybe are just plain wired. We have a ways to go - so let the journey begin.......

Management or Leadership

This week there was a great post in Harvard Business Review by Robert Sutton entitled “True Leaders Are Also Managers”. This is an age old discussion – what the role is of a CEO vs. President or manager vs. leader. The article includes these comments:

“In my reviews of the writings and research, I kept bumping into an old and popular distinction that has always bugged me: leading versus managing. The brilliant and charming Warren Bennis has likely done more to popularize this distinction than anyone else. He wrote in "Learning to Lead: A Workbook on Becoming a Leader" that "There is a profound difference between management and leadership, and both are important. To manage means to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or responsibility for, to conduct. Leading is influencing, guiding in a direction, course, action, opinion. The distinction is crucial." And in one of his most famous lines, he added, "Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing."”

Sutton continues with these words: “Although this distinction is more or less correct, and is useful to a degree, it has unintended negative effects on how some leaders view and do their work. Some leaders now see their job as just coming up with big and vague ideas, and they treat implementing them, or even engaging in conversation and planning about the details of them, as mere "management" work.

Worse still, this distinction seems to be used as a reason for leaders to avoid the hard work of learning about the people that they lead, the technologies their companies use, and the customers they serve. "Big picture only" leaders often make decisions without considering the constraints that affect the cost and time required to implement them, and even when evidence begins mounting that it is impossible or unwise to implement their grand ideas, they often choose to push forward anyway.”

He is right on the money. There has to be balance between the two. Robert Sutton goes on to close with these words: “I am not rejecting the distinction between leadership and management, but I am saying that the best leaders do something that might properly be called a mix of leadership and management. At a minimum, they lead in a way that constantly takes into account the importance of management. Meanwhile, the worst use the distinction between leadership and management as an excuse to avoid the details they really have to master to see the big picture and select the right strategies. Therefore, harking back to the Bennis theorem I quoted above, let me propose a corollary: To do the right thing, a leader needs to understand what it takes to do things right, and to make sure they actually get done. When we glorify leadership too much, and management too little, there is great risk of failing to act on this obvious but powerful message”.

So when we boil down the whole leadership versus management debate – there are a few things that need to be considered:
1. Every company needs someone focused on doing both. There must be someone serving the role of CEO (big picture thinker) and someone filling the role of President/GM (get it executed)
2. These are not mutually exclusive nor do they have to be at odds with each other
3. It is difficult for one person to effectively do both roles consistently
4. Much of the success that can happen when done right centers around effective communication between the roles and with the entire team
5. Execution is still the only thing that truly matters – big pictures that are not executed are just hallucination!

So the guidance is clear. Make sure your company is practicing both roles. Balance them through continual open communication. Lead by assuring execution so you don’t spend your time spinning your wheels and hallucinating about what could be and should be. Determine the course and just get er done!

CEO and Entrepreneurship

This blog post is based on some great information shared on Harvard Business Review written by Stever Robbins. You can find the original post here. Mr. Robbins gives some great thoughts on the role of a CEO and particularly on success in that role as it relates to entrepreneurship. He focuses on the reality that most CEO's likely began their journey as an entrepreneur, and as such, need to do some things differently as they grow in their leadership responsibilities. Here are some of his thoughts:

"The CEO entrepreneur sets a company's vision and strategy. The vision is why the company exists in the first place. The strategy is how the company plans to do that, given the reality of the marketplace, the competitors, regulation, technology trends, etc. Strategy includes everything from designing the organizational structure to defining the business model to choosing partners for the venture.

Great entrepreneurs make strategic opportunities. Great entrepreneurs use research, prediction, and detailed plans. But rather than hope to discover an opportunity, they make their opportunities. They build an ecosystem of customers, employees, suppliers, and partners who all have a vested interest in the company doing well. They experiment and learn, continuously altering their strategy — and indeed, their entire vision — as needed for success.

CEOs need to spend regular time on strategy. Furthermore, great entrepreneurs regularly assess their resources, relationships, and partnerships. Rather than simply trying to align around a single long-term opportunity, they should think in terms of creating a market and altering their vision with them to build an ecosystem that's greater than the sum of its parts".

So boiling it all down I see it this way. Many of us began our companies as entrepreneurs. We went to market with a product or service. We built an ecosystem of customers, suppliers, employees etc. We started without a lot of planning in many cases. We have built something based on hard work and pure will power. But that only goes so far. It runs out of steam and we have to move to the next level as leaders - to become CEO's that focus on strategy and planning. We have to focus on relationships and the people so our ecosystem takes us to the next level. We basically have to grow up in our leadership style. How much time have you spent being CEO this week? It is important work. Are you making and taking time to fill that role?