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The Sad Truth About Developing Executives

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Re: The Sad Truth About Developing Executives

#21

Post by hacknat »

beloch wrote: post #18

"You should be extremely clear up front that you expect your executives to be world-class in their functions. If they are not, they will not keep their jobs. Furthermore, you will not be able to make them world-class, because you are not world-class in their areas." I see two big problems with this statement: 1. It falls into the "everyone must be extraordinarily excellent" trap. The average employee is... average. O…

1. Nah, I think he's right. You're right in that most start-ups will never run into the issues that he's talking about, because most will fail, but if you need to take sales national or international then your VP of Sales better be either a domain leader or know a helluvalot more than you. Either way, you have to trust executives at a level that you never have to for average employees.

2. I didn't see him say anywhere that performance has to be measured short-term. Having a noose over your head based on long term results is very possible. Of course you evaluate your executives on their last major completed project/action, it may have taken 6-18 months (or longer) for it to come to fruition, but that doesn't mean a noose isn't over their heads.

Re: The Sad Truth About Developing Executives

#22

Post by ABS »

varunjuice wrote: post #8

When you're hired as an executive, the state of affairs is either glorious or shit. If its glorious, its because the previous executive left. You in this case have the excellent opportunity of not screwing it up. Good luck, but it'll be while before anyone figures out that you're an imposter. Typically, your team will know well ahead of the CEO. By the time the CEO knows, its too late to mentor you. The damage is don…

> show improvement within 90 days

any (senior) executive who changes things in the first 90 days has got it completely wrong. And if who hired them expect sweeping changes in 90 days then they got it even worse.

Anything that a new hire can do in their first 90 days can be done, and better, by whoever that new executive will report to.

E.g.: if you hire me to fire the people you want fired then there is no reason to wait for me and you should do it yourself. The moment you hire me to get help you have to give me the time to decide for myself who to fire and who not to and it will take more than a few weeks to make sensible decisions.

And yes, that's the exact conversion I had when I found myself in that situation and it's not valid just for SMEs, see 'Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?' for basically the same idea in a place as big as IBM (when he talks about everyone expecting him to come up with a brilliant strategy fast)

Re: The Sad Truth About Developing Executives

#24

Post by floppydisk »

varunjuice wrote: post #8

When you're hired as an executive, the state of affairs is either glorious or shit. If its glorious, its because the previous executive left. You in this case have the excellent opportunity of not screwing it up. Good luck, but it'll be while before anyone figures out that you're an imposter. Typically, your team will know well ahead of the CEO. By the time the CEO knows, its too late to mentor you. The damage is don…

Wisest words I ever got early in my career from a boss who spent a couple of decades in senior management at a variety of big and small tech companies was if you're hired as an executive you immediately do three things. 1) Get in early, leave late, and read everything about the group you're running. 2) Get to know your people and understand the problems you're dealing with. 3) Change nothing immediately. Waltzing in and changing things willy nilly is a recipe for disaster. I'd counter and say within 90 days you should have a handle on the group you're running, what's going really well, what's going poorly, and identify plan(s) to address major areas that need addressing. It shows you actually understand and aren't simply kicking the apple cart for the sake of making an impression.

Re: The Sad Truth About Developing Executives

#25

Post by MollyR »

angersock wrote: post #3

Unfortunately, especially in a startup, there aren't many friendly ways of saying "Hey, CEO, I think you're sucking at leading and sales. What gives?" Especially if you're an early employee and not in the elevated founder class.

Yea, It can get you fired. I've seen it happen. This article is too idealistic, and doesn't take into account businesses have business politics or peoples ego's.

Re: The Sad Truth About Developing Executives

#27

Post by varunjuice »

ABS wrote: post #22
varunjuice wrote: post #8

When you're hired as an executive, the state of affairs is either glorious or shit. If its glorious, its because the previous executive left. You in this case have the excellent opportunity of not screwing it up. Good luck, but it'll be while before anyone figures out that you're an imposter. Typically, your team will know well ahead of the CEO. By the time the CEO knows, its too late to mentor you. The damage is don…

> show improvement within 90 days any (senior) executive who changes things in the first 90 days has got it completely wrong. And if who hired them expect sweeping changes in 90 days then they got it even worse. Anything that a new hire can do in their first 90 days can be done, and better, by whoever that new executive will report to. E.g.: if you hire me to fire the people you want fired then there is no reason to…

You're right. My heuristic is not without exceptions.

Re: The Sad Truth About Developing Executives

#28

Post by varunjuice »

floppydisk wrote: post #24
varunjuice wrote: post #8

When you're hired as an executive, the state of affairs is either glorious or shit. If its glorious, its because the previous executive left. You in this case have the excellent opportunity of not screwing it up. Good luck, but it'll be while before anyone figures out that you're an imposter. Typically, your team will know well ahead of the CEO. By the time the CEO knows, its too late to mentor you. The damage is don…

Wisest words I ever got early in my career from a boss who spent a couple of decades in senior management at a variety of big and small tech companies was if you're hired as an executive you immediately do three things. 1) Get in early, leave late, and read everything about the group you're running. 2) Get to know your people and understand the problems you're dealing with. 3) Change nothing immediately. Waltzing in…

Fair point. When I say 90 days, I think if things are bad, it's typically easy to spot where the degenerate behaviors are starting, and correcting them. In 90 days, the leading indicators need to start looking good. It takes time for that to flow through the system.

Re: The Sad Truth About Developing Executives

#29

Post by Spooky23 »

ABS wrote: post #22
varunjuice wrote: post #8

When you're hired as an executive, the state of affairs is either glorious or shit. If its glorious, its because the previous executive left. You in this case have the excellent opportunity of not screwing it up. Good luck, but it'll be while before anyone figures out that you're an imposter. Typically, your team will know well ahead of the CEO. By the time the CEO knows, its too late to mentor you. The damage is don…

> show improvement within 90 days any (senior) executive who changes things in the first 90 days has got it completely wrong. And if who hired them expect sweeping changes in 90 days then they got it even worse. Anything that a new hire can do in their first 90 days can be done, and better, by whoever that new executive will report to. E.g.: if you hire me to fire the people you want fired then there is no reason to…

I respectfully disagree. Any significant org is going to have have some process that sounded good at the time, but is now ridiculous.

If you're not finding and correcting those things in 90 days as an executive, you're warming a chair.

Re: The Sad Truth About Developing Executives

#30

Post by notahacker »

hacknat wrote: post #21
beloch wrote: post #18

"You should be extremely clear up front that you expect your executives to be world-class in their functions. If they are not, they will not keep their jobs. Furthermore, you will not be able to make them world-class, because you are not world-class in their areas." I see two big problems with this statement: 1. It falls into the "everyone must be extraordinarily excellent" trap. The average employee is... average. O…

1. Nah, I think he's right. You're right in that most start-ups will never run into the issues that he's talking about, because most will fail, but if you need to take sales national or international then your VP of Sales better be either a domain leader or know a helluvalot more than you. Either way, you have to trust executives at a level that you never have to for average employees. 2. I didn't see him say anywher…

Your VP of Sales will know a helluva lot more than you do if they're remotely competent at their job though, which is not by any stretch of the imagination equivalent to being "world class". Any decent VP of Sales will also be highly adept at shifting blame if you make it clear the knife is hanging over their head from the start...

Even in sales, which has an unusually straightforward success metric, beyond a certain threshold of above-average competency the leadership is more about how well their approach gels with the most suitable approach for your service, and how flexible they are in their approaches than whether they're some mythical 10x unicorn. Someone who is "world class" at scaling inside sales teams is not going to be "world class" at figuring out how to get your small team of domain experts to network their way to niche domination... if anything applying lessons learned from their experience might make things worse. And I'm not sure what even makes a Head of HR "world class", but I'd certainly prefer a shared philosophy than a stellar set of resume accomplishments.

Anyone involved in a sufficiently large organization who thinks all their senior executives are "world class" or necessary to eliminate is clearly the weak link on the team, especially when it comes to judging others' abilities.

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