Managing People Challenges

All new CEOs are confronted with tremendous challenges and even the normal everyday ones can be quite overwhelming. So how can a CEO ensure success in the face of tremendous pressures?

The good advice from the library of business books applies: make sure you have the right people ‘on the bus’, develop solid plans, delegate authority and accountability, get out of the way and….

A critical point in successful businesses is when its time to bring in more help. Typically, the first external support a CEO hires is an accountant, then a lawyer. Good decisions, but then the entrepreneurial CEO tries to manage difficult logistics problems, people chaos, dealing with building problems, purchasing…and on and on. Usually things work ok, at least for a while, and then the guaranteed catastrophe happens. Now what? The most common self defeating behavior: we try to be an expert in every area. It’s just not possible… and run a profitable business.

You don’t try to fix the plumbing or the electrical systems by yourself, do you? You know something about electricity, but you also know you don’t know ‘enough’. So you call an electrician. And you know something about working with employees with poor attitudes or performance, but this is not your area of expertise. Time to call in the experts to help you ‘get the lights back on’. Or when you have a mind boggling logistics problem, or when your sales are sluggish. Savvy CEOs know when to ask for help and they know it’s less costly in the long term.

The most natural behavior is to do it yourself or tell someone else how to do it, but the most effective behavior may be to step back and let others decide both what to do and how to do it.

Well, ‘stepping back’ is actually quite a personal challenge. Many CEOs have grown up with their businesses and are exceptionally savvy about the inner workings of their industry and their own company. So the CEO is pretty confident that he knows the way to get things done.

The most self defeating behavior of all is to not ask for help.

It’s Always About People www.thenielsengroup.com