Tag: vistage

There are no solutions, only trade-offs.

“CEOs are in the business of making decisions”

Sam Reese, Vistage CEO

I’ve been reflecting this week on a quote from Economist Thomas Sowell “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.”

I work with CEOs. They take decisions. They feel responsible for the consequences of these decisions. They often wait to find a “perfect solution” rather than take action today on a “less than perfect option”.

CEOs (and the rest of us) live in a world of finite resources – time, money, manpower. With every decision, we are indicating our priorities. Investing in a new project might drive growth but will divert resources from other key areas. Each choice has consequences that affect stakeholders within and outside your organisation.

There is no Perfect Solution

When I teach, I often tell my participants that the worst approach to leadership is idealism. When a leader stands up and tells the world “every child deserves to go to school, every child deserves to have a safe home, every child deserves clean water, every child deserves medical services that are free and close to them…” after the applause, nothing changes. No child notices a difference. This is the worst use of the power of leadership… an idealistic rant. I agree with every part of it… but that changes nothing. There are trade-offs.

I was reminded of this idea while attending a conference yesterday at IESE Business School. I had the privilege of being the keynote speaker at an event hosted by the company Veepee.

The slide reads: “97% of people want to live a sustainable lifestyle; but only 12% of people are actually changing their behaviour”.

There are few cost free choices. Leaders often face immense pressure to deliver clear-cut answers. The pursuit of one objective always means sacrificing another. We must be very careful with the illusionary idea of a “perfect solution”.

Perspective: A Leadership Power Tool

Far from being a bleak outlook, this viewpoint is empowering. It emphasizes the importance of perspective, context, and adaptability in leadership. Recognizing trade-offs enhances our decision-making process. It encourages leaders to appreciate the complexities, accept the grey areas, and understand that their choices reflect their priorities.

For CEOs in this complex decision-making landscape, peer groups like Vistage play a crucial role. Vistage provides a trusted circle of peers who provide insight, experience, and accountability. Leaders are not alone in their decision-making process. Vistage offers a proven decision making method where CEOs can explore potential impacts, consequences, and risks associated with each choice.

This framework allows leaders to consider their priorities, weigh their options, and make decisions aligned with their strategic objectives and values… and then commit themselves and their organisation to the decision.

Conscious Decision-Making

Leadership isn’t about finding the perfect answer.

Leadership is about understanding the consequences of the choices you make and how those choices relate to the underlying purpose of yourself as leader.

Being a good manager (of yourself)

I’ve met some excellent business managers… who are extremely poor managers of their own life.

They get results. They support others. They build capable, effective teams. Their business grows.

…but they are not joyful.

They are not waking up motivated each day.

They are not finding themselves energised through the day by the activities, people and places where they spend their hours.

It strikes me as a sad trade – to be a good manager of external resources, but lacking any degree of effective control or direction of your own inner state.

Our mission at Vistage is to “improve the effectiveness and enhance the quality of life of CEOs”. I believe that the most important word in that sentence is the “and”. Achieving results at the cost of your health, your relationships, your sanity… not a great trade. What would it take to achieve both increased effectiveness and enhanced quality of life?

What is Quality of Life?

Leading a Business: The 3+1 Roles of the CEO

We had an event this week in Madrid with Dan Wertenberg, a Vistage Chair from the USA as the speaker.

What is the Role of the CEO?

He shared an interactive and valuable 90 minute session with the gathered CEOs about the 3+1 roles of the CEO.

  1. Chief Strategy Officer
  2. Chief Team Builder
  3. Chief Sales Officer
  4. Lead the Financial Institution

The 3+1 “non-Delegatable roles” of the leader.

Chief Strategy Officer

The single most important question of strategy is “Who is our customer?” Dan shared the learnings from the PIMS study, done in the 1960s and 1970s in the US… looking at all the factors that lead to business success.

One of the big findings of the study was that a factor that repeatedly correlated with profitability – whether the business was the dominant provider to a market segment… essentially the #1 or #2 competitor in a market.

Strategy is fundamentally about deciding which market can we be the dominant, world class, excellent provider to this customer group. The question for a business leader: “who do we serve?” and also “who do we not serve?” Dan told us that every CEO should take their leaders out for at least 4 days each year to work together on defining with ever more clarity the profile of the ideal customer.

Chief Team Builder

The CEO is responsible for building the team. Dan shared with us that we as human beings are poor at selecting talent. Interviews are not a great way of predicting an individual’s future performance in a role.

We are not good selectors of talent, but we are all capable of identifying the factors that will make it unlikely that someone will succeed, or fit with the current team. Dan suggests that we actively de-select individuals who will not fit with our organisation, and then select only from those that remain.

The second part of team building is rapidly dealing with underperformance. If a CEO does not deal with underperformance (for whatever reason), it sends a message to the whole team that underperformance is acceptable.

Chief Sales Officer

An organisation that has the ability to scale and become great needs to have a sales process that is consistent, repeatable and structured. If there is a consistent sales process, then an organisation can scale up. If sales depends on certain individuals or the right day of the week… you cannot systematically grow the business.

The CEO should also personally play an active role in any large sales process of the company… involving themselves personally in some of the meetings.

The CEO should also ensure that every 6 months, they find a way of having lunch or dinner with the CEOs of the 10 biggest customers… to learn about them and to show the importance of their business.

Leader of the Financial Institution

Dan shared that a CEO is running 2 connected but somewhat distinct organisations… the operating business… and the financial institution behind the business.

As the financial leader, the CEO needs to ensure that there is a rolling 12 month projection of income statement and balance sheet. The CEO then needs to look at how we are performing against that plan. All variations are interesting… often we pay attention to negative variation… but the lessons that can be learnt from the positive variations are extremely important… as they are the source of identifying tactics that can be scaled up.

Most people prefer a problem they can’t fix to a solution they don’t like

“Most people prefer a problem they can’t fix to a solution they don’t like”

Lee Thayer

This sentence is mad…. but there is a certain truth to it.

Lee Thayer is the author of several books on the practice of Leadership. He was a big proponent of working to integrate thinking, being and doing into a more complete mode of leading people and organisations. Lee was a mentor and inspiration for many Vistage Chairs.

Problems we know vs Solutions we don’t know

Why might we prefer allowing a problem to persist than to take the steps to solve the problem?

Why is this:

  • Delay the Pain: The consequences of the problem will probably be felt most strongly in the future, whilst the discipline to put into action the solution requires pain today.
  • Fear of Uncertainty: A persistent problem may be challenging, but it is familiar, and we know what to expect.
  • Locus of Control: It is easier to accept a problem that we have no control over than to accept a solution that requires conflict or change, or the involvement of other human beings in putting into action.

The best way to approach being human is often to learn to laugh at ourselves. We have the capacity to be rational, goal seeking individuals… and also the capacity to be nuts.

How To Handle The Painful Aspects Of Leadership During Economic Recession

I get a lot of value out of the Arete coach podcast run by Severin Sorensen, who has a background as a CEO and then as a Vistage CEO group mentor and coach (Chair).

I was interviewed by Severin in May 2021 for episode 1037 on his podcast: Arete Coach Podcast 1037 Conor Neill “Powerful Stories Stimulate Action”

Last week Severin brought together an experienced group of CEOs who are part of the Vistage Chair community.

How to Prepare for a Probable Recession

In the Panel Discussion, we explore:

  • What is a recession? [1:13];
  • What Does A Recession Feel Like? [10:38];
  • What 10 Things Would You Take Into A Hard Recession? [29:07];
  • Final reflections from panelists [1:13:23]; and lastly,
  • Severin summarises the session [1:17:50] and ends with a few inspiring quotes to consider.

This is episode 1095 of the Arete Coach Podcast with Severin Sorensen and his executive coach guests Michele Barry, Ben Griffin, Barry Goldberg, Phil Holberton, and Conor Neill.

In this episode, Arete Coach podcast presents a panel discussion of senior executive coaches that explores how to prepare for a Recession, and specifically, 10 things to take with you into a hard recession.

The purpose of putting this episode together was to provide valuable counsel for CEOs, business owners and coaches who are coaching other business owners on how to prepare for a probable recession, and one that may indeed be a hard recession.

Share this episode with executive coaches, business coaches, leadership coaches, business owners, entrepreneurs, CEOs, Key Executive teams, and anyone wanting to have a head start in preparing for what looks like more than a portent of stormy weather ahead.

What do excellent CEOs do? (according to McKinsey research)

A company has only one ultimate decision maker: the CEO.

The CEO is the only person in a company without peers. No other individual holds such a full and final responsibility for the company. The CEO is the most powerful and sought-after title in business, more influential than any other. The CEO takes the company’s biggest decisions. These decisions account for 45% of a company’s performance.

This power and influence comes with a heavy burden.

The role of CEO can be all-consuming, lonely, and stressful. Just 3 out of 5 new CEOs live up to expectations in their first 18 months… and many CEOs struggle with their quality of life (health, family relationships, friendships) in the face of the pressures they face.

I run Vistage in Spain. Vistage is the world’s leading CEO coaching organisation. Over more than 60 years, Vistage has worked closely with CEOs to take and implement better decisions which enhance their performance and increase their quality of life.

The following post draws heavily from a recent McKinsey article “The mindsets and practices of excellent CEOs“.

The Biggest regret of CEOs

I spend time with hundreds of CEOs each year. They are good people and they want the best for the good people around them. This makes it extremely personally challenging for them to deal with underperformance. They like the people around them. They want to give them lots of opportunities. They feel that it is a personal failure when someone close to them repeatedly underperforms expectations. They give more time. They allow for environmental factors. They wait and hope.

The single biggest regret of CEOs is not dealing quickly with underperformance.

In my work with CEOs through Vistage, over half of all of our work is about the current and future performance of the people and teams that surround the CEO. We challenge CEOs to stop waiting for underperformance to fix itself.

The Differentiator between Great and Good CEOs

According to McKinsey, the distinction between good CEOs and the great CEOs is the ability to focus.

Great CEOs place “big bets”. They focus on the top 3-5 most important initiatives. They dedicate 90% of their time, energy, resources to the 5 most important projects. They say “no” often. They don’t allow their time to fill up with many different activities and different priorities.

The Good CEOs avoided this level of focus. Their prioritisation of what is truly important is less clear. They are involved in many initiatives. They allow their agenda to fill up and try dedicate a couple of hours each week to the most important projects. They try to fit the important initiatives in around their “day job” of running the company.

The Great CEO has delegated the running of the company to an effective leadership team. They have made themselves unnecessary for operating the company today, so they can dedicate themselves to building the company of the future.

Jeff Bezos says that he spends 5% of his time running the company, and 95% of his time building the future company.

The Job of the Great CEO (according to McKinsey)

What specific behaviours can make current CEOs most effective? This is a summary of the McKinsey article linked above.

The Great CEO’s job has 6 main elements.

  1. Setting the Strategy
  2. Aligning the Organization
  3. Leading the Top Team
  4. Working with the Board
  5. Being the face of the company to external stakeholders
  6. Managing one’s own Time and Energy

1. Setting The Strategy

Objective: Focus on Beating the odds…

  1. Vision: reframe what winning means, where do we want to be in 5, 10 or 15 years?
  2. Strategy: make bold moves early
  3. Resource allocation: stay active, top performers actively & quickly move resources to their strengths

2. Organisational Alignment

Objective: Manage Performance and Health

  1. Talent: match talent to value
  2. Culture: go beyond employee engagement
  3. Organisational design: combine speed with stability

3. Leading the Top Team

Objective: Put dynamics ahead of mechanics

  1. Teamwork: show resolve
  2. Decision making: defend against biases
  3. Management processes: ensure coherence

4. Board Engagement

Objective: Help directors to help the business

  1. Effectiveness: promote a forward looking agenda
  2. Relationships: think beyond the meeting
  3. Capabilities: seek balance and development

5. Being the face of the company

Objective: Center on the long-term “Why?”

  1. Social purpose: look at the big picture
  2. Interactions: prioritize and shape
  3. Moments of Truth: build resilience ahead of a crisis

6. Managing one’s own time and energy

Objective: Do what only you can doceo

  1. Office: manage time and energy
  2. Leadership model: choose authenticity
  3. Perspective: guard against hubris

If you liked this post, you will also like The CEO’s Guide to Boards and The CEO’s 7 Leadership Laws During Times of Uncertainty.

Photo credit: fauxels on Pexels.com, Liza Summer on Pexels.com, SplitShire on Pexels.com

Limiting Beliefs

This is a list from Vered Kogan, Vistage Chair.

Lots of our coaching work in Vistage involves helping leaders identify limitations in their beliefs that restrict their opportunities for personal and professional growth.

What Are Limiting Beliefs?

A limiting belief is an opinion about the world that stops you seeing some potential paths or resources that could help you achieve something that is important to you.

A limiting belief is something you have learnt in the past… it may have been helpful in the past… but today it is limiting your capacity for positive action.

Here’s a list of Limiting Beliefs

  • I’m not good enough  
  • I’m not making enough progress
  • I don’t know where to start  
  • I can’t do it…I’ll never change
  • I can’t depend on most people  
  • I won’t have time to do things I enjoy
  • I don’t have the right skill sets  
  • I’m just not lucky
  • I’m not smart/experienced enough  
  • I’m too old/young
  • I shouldn’t want more in my life  
  • There’s never enough time
  • There’s a right way to do things  
  • What would people think?
  • I’m too scared  
  • It’s too hard. I’m overwhelmed.
  • I don’t have enough resources  
  • What if I change my mind?
  • I might do it wrong  
  • I don’t have a choice
  • I’m a fraud  
  • I’m not very creative
  • I’m not very sociable/outgoing  
  • There’s nothing I can do about…
  • What if they reject/don’t like me?  
  • It’s someone else’s fault

How to Weaken a Limiting Belief

  1. Identify a limiting belief
  2. Ask yourself, “What negative or unwanted consequences have I already experienced as a result of this limiting belief”?
  3. Ask yourself, “What positive outcomes and transformations might I be able to experience if I’m willing to let go of this limiting belief”?
  4. Weaken the Limiting Belief
  5. Cross Out the Limiting Belief
  6. Replace it with a NEW Belief
  7. Strengthen the NEW Belief

Learn more about overcoming Limiting Beliefs from Vered Kogan:

You Don’t have Time to Figure Everything Out on your Own

Life is too short to figure everything out on your own. 

Humans spend the years from birth to 12 learning how to survive.  Our parents have a vested interest in helping us develop the Stop there: we merely survive. 

We live in a highly complex society.  There is intense competition for status in whatever hierarchy you compete in. It doesn’t matter whether you choose to compete or not, society and humanity are designed to compete for resources.  It is not those born strong that rise to the top of status hierarchies in today’s human society.  It is those who learn to use their capacities most effectively and adapt quickly to changes in the environment.  

There are two ways we learn to make positive progress in this society – 1) our own experience, or 2) through the experiences of others.  Our own experience is a slow and expensive way of learning. 

If I am to choose to learn most effectively, through the experiences of others, I must learn the art of meaningful conversation. Through my work with Entrepreneurs’ Organisation forum and Vistage groups I have worked extensively over the last 15 years on creating the type of meaningful conversation that allows one to learn from the experiences of another.

I’m sharing 4 ideas that I took from Jordan Peterson’s book the 12 Rules for Life when I read it this year.

“Your current knowledge has neither made you perfect nor kept you safe”

Your knowledge is insufficient. You must accept this before you can converse philosophically, instead of pushing opinions, convincing, oppressing, dominating or joking.  

“Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t”

It is necessary to respect the personal experience of your conversational partners. You must assume that they have reached careful, thoughtful, genuine conclusions (and, perhaps, they must have done the work that justifies this assumption). You must believe that if they shared their conclusions with you, you could bypass at least some of the pain of personally learning the same things (as learning from the experience of others can be quicker and much less dangerous).

It takes conversation to organise a mind 

“people organize their brains with conversation. If they don’t have anyone to tell their story to, they lose their minds.” The input of the community is required for the integrity of the individual psyche.    

“Life is short, and you don’t have time to figure everything out on your own” 

They say Aristotle was the last man who knew everything there was to know. Since the time of Aristotle (over 2300 years ago) society has become too complex for any one individual to know all that is known.  

When I was in school, I took huge value in solving from first principles. I would prefer to solve mathematic problems from first principles and avoid using formulaic recipes that allowed you to shortcut to a solution.  This was symptomatic of my whole approach to life. If I hadn’t figured it out myself, I didn’t value the knowledge.  There is a heroic valor to this approach, but it is dumb heroics.  

If you liked this post, you will also like How do I become a better listener and 50 Questions for better Critical Thinking.

Check out the full list of books I read in 2020.

 

 

The CEO’s 7 Leadership Laws During Times of Uncertainty

Sam Reese, CEO Vistage

This article by Vistage CEO Sam Reese was originally published on the Vistage blog. Over his 35 year career as a business leader, Sam has led large and midsize organizations and has advised CEOs and key executives of companies all over the world.

Over to Sam…

The COVID-19 pandemic presents new challenges for leaders, but it also offers fresh opportunities to learn how to navigate their companies through uncharted waters. As employees accept the current crisis and adjust to new environments, routines and protocol, they look to leaders for transparency, stability and conscious decision-making.

Through coaching more than 100,000 CEOs of small to midsize businesses over 60 years, Vistage has identified 7 fundamental truths about great leadership. The following laws ensure solid decision-making through these unpredictable times and beyond: Free guide to help lead your company through challenging times.

1. Reject shortcuts to growth

Great leaders know leadership excellence is a challenging, continuous journey that requires hard work and determined attention.

Sam Reese

Great leaders know leadership excellence is a challenging, continuous journey that requires hard work and determined attention. They reject shortcuts and take ownership of their development, especially in times of crisis. They bring rigor and grit, working hard to hone their expertise and continuously improve. They recognize it is important to keep an organized rhythm of communications and work progress that will keep their businesses busy and aligned during a crisis.

2. Carve out space to work on the business

Successful leaders routinely carve out time and space away from the business to reflect, acquire new knowledge and focus on strategy. This discipline allows them to gain the clarity they need to navigate the day-to-day challenges and understand the environment outside their business. The stress of leading through a global pandemic requires a leader to pause and regroup.

3. Challenge your thinking with fresh perspectives

Great leaders seek diverse perspectives on important decisions from trusted peers. They actively work to combat insular thinking and confirmation bias. They find other CEOs and business leaders who’ve tackled similar issues but in different industries. These peers understand the nuances and challenges of the role but bring fresh perspectives, unhampered by institutional knowledge. Now more than ever, when a group of diverse leaders learn from one another, this effect is amplified. CEOs can share the real-time learnings that come from leading a company through a pandemic.

4. Stoke curiosity

World-class business leaders are high on curiosity and low on ego.

Sam Reese

World-class business leaders are high on curiosity and low on ego. They are inquisitive, welcome new ideas from trusted sources and eager to explore. Vulnerability is viewed as an asset, and they are the first to admit they don’t have all the answers. They ask questions to seek input and pressure-test their assumptions, so they can come to the best decision for the business – not to prove their own point. These trying times present the opportunity to be open to and apply new ideas.

5. Apply discipline to decision-making

High-performing leaders follow a disciplined approach to decision-making. They use a systematic process that takes into account their instincts; judgment based on experience and data; and perspectives from peers, mentors and employees. The key is to focus on what can be done today, not necessarily developing long-term strategies that may need to be changed after a crisis. Focus has to remain on mission, vision, purpose and values as the North Star. With these values as the foundation, leaders can make decisions with speed, consistency and accuracy – even under the heavy pressures of a pandemic.

High-performing leaders follow a disciplined approach to decision-making.

Sam Reese

6. Find a trusted guide

Successful leaders view a coach or mentor as a critical component to leadership excellence, especially in stressful times. They value a trusted guide who challenges their assumptions, identifies their blind spots and holds them accountable. The most effective coaches and mentors approach the CEO as a whole person, not just the leader in the corner office. Leaders who take a comprehensive approach to development that includes feedback from trusted peers, effective mentoring, and insights from subject-matter experts continuously outperform their competitors.

7. Rise by helping others

Great leaders help others think critically through their challenges and in the process fine-tune their own decision-making skills. Leaders also recognize relationships matter even more during a crisis. Whether these relationships are with coworkers, customers, suppliers, partners or investors, CEOs and decision makers help others as they remain in constant, transparent communication. Accessibility is the No. 1 quality employees look for in their leaders during a time of crisis. By staying available, you will become acutely aware of the challenges that need to be addressed and convey a sense of stability and continuity during a crisis. High-integrity leaders leave a legacy. The way you manage in a crisis like this will be a key part of the legacy you leave and an example for those who follow in your footsteps.

The coronavirus has brought disruption and caused unprecedented challenges for CEOs, but it can also inspire innovation and lead the way to a company’s future success when life returns to normal. COVID-19 shines a light on the challenges of leading through change and crisis. By using these seven laws and providing clear communication, decision makers can take effective action for their companies today and tomorrow. 

Get the Guide

If you liked this post, you will also like Why you should be in a Mastermind Group and Conor Neill’s Webinar for IESE Business School: How to Lead in Uncertain Times.

The 4 Fatal Fears (in Western Society)

A big part of Vistage group meetings is working through a CEO’s challenges and helping them get clarity about how they can move forward with their business and their life.

We often find that the biggest obstacle to forward progress is not outside of us, but inside of us.

There are 4 fatal fears.

We also call these “Core Self-Limiting Beliefs”. They are learnt. We are not born with these fears. There are only 2 fear that we are born with: fear of falling and fear of loud noises. Every other fear has been learnt. (This does not make them less real or easier to deal with).

These 4 fears will drive a grasping towards something that will never fill me. If I am looking for completion outside of myself, I will never scratch my itch. I need to learn to be able to sit with my fear and anxiety and accept it and accept that I am human and imperfect.

  1. Fear of Failure – “I Need Success”
  2. Fear of Rejection – “I Need Acceptance”
  3. Fear of Emotional Discomfort – “I Need Emotional Comfort”
  4. Fear of Being Wrong – “I Need to Be Right”

Each of the fears can be accepted and allowed to exist within me. They will never go away. They will always be there, but I can accept them and not allow them to direct my actions and my words.

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