chrisbrogan.com - Latest Comments in Think Like a CEO

Re: Think Like a CEO

Barlow Keener — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 11:11:24 -0000

To take a contrarian view on the subject, I think that thinking like a CEO means having a vision and using the CEO's personal strengths to bring that vision into reality. It can be different for different CEO's with lots of successes and failures along the way. Look at several different CEO's and what made them successful. Most had a #2 who helped them win. Gates and Balmer. Gates was not a good listener or good with people but he could read and pick up on ideas and Balmer was good with people. Then there is Jobs. Jobs is a visionary but has poor people skills. His vision was enough to keep his people excited. Woz was his #2 early on. The movie "The Devil Wears Prada" with Meryl Streep shows a CEO with a vision and with poor people skills. Her executive team makes her successful. Google "co-CEO's" with Eric Schmidt as the public face works well. At Google, it seems the conversation between Brin and Page drive the business, at least that was the case in their formative years. Even now I hear they interview candidate employees together and share an office without a wall. So I think that a successful CEO always a) knows what the vision is and drives the vision to reality and b) finds co-CEO's or executive-team member that fill in or complement the CEO's weak areas. Together the team makes a business. It is the CEO's job to carefully select the team and to maintain the vision.

The founder of Dunkin Donuts, Bill Rosenberg always said, "A person does not build a business, a person builds an organization and an organization builds a business." Bill was a very difficult man to deal with day-to-day but he surrounded himself with a team dedicated to his vision and a team who filled-in or complemented Bill's weak spots.

Re: Think Like a CEO

Brian Brady — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 03:19:44 -0000

I liked two things about this:

1- A CEO as a relationship manager

2- That each campaign a CEO leads is performed with the end users (stakeholders, customers, employees) in mind. The balancing act is difficult but efforts must be focused on maximizing value to the end users.

Re: Think Like a CEO

Shane — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 15:19:29 -0000

Hi Chris,

One of my biggest mentors was my CEO. Those are all great characterizations that you listed and they're all bang-on.

Re: Think Like a CEO

Kevin Mullins — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:58:25 -0000

Hey Chris, nice post and very accurate. I think we often get caught up in our day to day roles and do not always see the big picture or communicate the benefits of the big picture to our staffs, which leads to non-alignment of goals and resources.

Re: Think Like a CEO

Mike Wanner — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 18:57:09 -0000

Chris - first time listening/watching/reading/absorbing/sharing your thoughts on topics related to my everyday life her in the corporate world. The culture of the company and the tone at which this occurs is right up there with your items. This reminds me of the "Yahoo Memo: The 'Peanut Butter Manifesto' that was written by Brad Garlinghouse who was not a CEO or major player at the time. His thought mirror exactly what you said in this post.

The most well-known CEO's embrace problems/challenges and know who to count on to take decisive action.

I would say, though, that most CEO's say they just want the details, but they have a tendency to want more than ever to be part of the discussion that affects shareholders, customers and employees. Recently I launched an SEO initiative and the CEO and presidents of both brands were intimately involved in almost every meeting surrounding the implementation and support. We are a $25M size company. In the end, it was them trying to cross over to becoming and wanting to be a 'technologist' because that affects our business o much these days regardless of your industry.

Thanks for sharing.

Re: Think Like a CEO

Cory Dinon — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:47:24 -0000

Hey Chris, great take on CEOs. I have had the great opportunity to work with a few small companies and start-ups in my short time in the working class and have learned a great deal from each of them. You hit the nail on the head when you said weak/small companies need strong leaders. Weak leaders + small company = closing doors. But working with any CEO is a great learning experience not matter how strong or weak they "appear" to be.

Re: Think Like a CEO

John Wall — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:03:01 -0000

There's a good short book, called "What the CEO wants you to know", that talks about how CEOs really need straight talk rather than insulation from bad news...

Re: Think Like a CEO

patmcgraw — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 08:40:50 -0000

Great piece. One key trait that I look for in a leader is consistency. The other is collaboration.

I find I work best with those that can clearly articulate their vision, invite discussion, accept different points of view that are supported with fact and then can sit back and tell the expertise in the room to 'make it happen'.

When I join a firm either as a consultant or employee, I need the leadership to be able to clearly articulate the vision and answer questions regarding how the organization will pursue and achieve that vision.

All too often, 'leadership' can't articulate the vision beyond 'to become the industry leader...' Because there are many roads to 'industry leader' and each offer different risks, threats, costs.

I can offer the 'leader' informed analysis and recommendations but I feel that their compensation package requires them to select one recommendation so that I can go off and pursue and achieve the goals and objectives.

Your paragraph on building your people is key - but I will add the importance of consistently supporting your people. Yes, I was hired to provide answers and deliver results...but if you keep changing the answer key so that today "1+1 = 2" but tomorrow it equal 4...we're going to have a problem.

Oh, and thanks for not suggesting "Good to Great", "Raving Fans" or anything by Covey. If I have one more C-level exec hand me a copy of these books as if it's the Holy Grail, I will puke.

Re: Think Like a CEO

Ian — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 20:01:43 -0000

Hey, Chris. Glad your blog is back up. Thinking about changing from 1 and 1? Although my blog is Typepad hosted, my website is on iPower, and I've gotta say that it's got rather good up-time.

Regards,

Ian (aka KOARC, aka HighDef)