The CEO's Dilemna

I was recently out to dinner with a friend of mine, the founder and leader of a growing and highly successful firm. We were discussing management styles. He felt that his role, based on his personality, was to limit the distractions generated by members of his team, and to keep them focused on what was most important, the growth and profitability of their practice. As an example, he presented the situation of PDA’s. BlackBerry’s, Treo’s, iPhones. They have become pervasive, necessary, and a distraction.

His firm uses Treo’s. Old Treo’s. I hate to say it, but sitting across from him at dinner, and looking at his Treo, he kind of reminded me of the scene in Wall Street with Gordon Gecko’s huge brick phone.

Yet his Treo had value. It still worked, it fulfilled the functionality he was looking for and after years of patches it was reliable. His Management Team wanted to upgrade to Blackberries. My friend, perhaps alone among his management, believed that there was no need to upgrade. He viewed the change as a distraction of money time, and mindshare. How would this help drive their goals of growth and profitability? Of adding clients and revenue?

At that dinner I found myself amazed, for no other reason than I had a hard time disagreeing with him. I was surprised by this, not just because my firm and my job revolve around bringing the benefits of technology to firms like his, but because I have the exact opposite style of leadership. If I was being kind to myself I’d say that I was a visionary, the type of CEO who drives change.

The truth is sometimes I’m just driving distraction, which I like to confuse for vision.

My style is similar to that of another friend, who by coincidence is also the Leader of a growing and successful firm in the same industry as my first friend. While (let’s call him friend 2) does drive growth and profitability, he also drives change. From the moment I met him, almost seven years ago, his goal has been to anticipate the needs of his clients and the market. He’s always wanted to have the latest technology in place, to drive the impression (and fact) that his firm could compete with the larger firms on all levels. During the term of our relationship, the only times I can recall him being disappointed in me is when he would meet with a new prospective client and they asked him for some capability we did not anticipate, that he did not have. He would never accept his Partners walking into a client’s office with anything but the latest technology. He would not accept a young summer intern experiencing anything less than the technology they were used to personally, or at school.

As a CEO, I find the challenge is that neither of my friends is wrong. In my experience neither is right either. Both personalities can lead to the growth of successful organizations, so long as the leader recognizes their traits, strengths and adopts a style that both embraces and compensates for them.

If neither is right, if it is both important and necessary to drive both vision and focus, what are the keys to being successful? I’ve given this some thought, and have started to develop a set of guidelines I intend to follow:

If you are the visionary (or a new, Colbert-like term, “distractionary”), surround yourself with:

1. A management team that will (a) filter these distractions, (b) stand up to you, and (c) execute on the ones that you both decide make sense and can be executed on without sacrificing your other goals, and/or, the ones that you decide to push anyway (and limit these).

2. Advisors who have practical experience with either the tactical items in your vision, or your competitors and market.

If you aren’t the visionary, they are similar but opposite:

1. Your management team should have members with vision, who like to drive change both within their individual areas and the company overall.

2. Be more controlling of your management team. The irony here is that the personalities required on your management team will balk at control, where they need more, yet the personalities on the visionaries management team will look for control, yet should be providing more.

3. Advisors who have practical experience with either the tactical items in your vision, or your competitors and market.

In the above scenarios, a strong Board could and should supplement the management team. But I don’t believe that they replace the team as they are often not as aware of the impact of your vision on the day-to-day requirements of your business.

As one of those advisors whose clients trust him to not only advise on technology, I need to ensure that the recommendations I make are not only driven by vision and a passion for technology, but by the realities of their business, their personal goals, and the culture of their organization. It is critical that I take into account their leadership style (and complement and challenge that style, if necessary), how they go to market, and what their clients and personnel are asking for.

In summary, for two firms in the same business, the right answer may be very different. It all depends on their focus.