Category Archives: CEO coaching

08/12/19

The Condors In My Gut

Bit of warm weather in the ATX which makes me get out and do my outside chores first thing before the sun sets things ablaze. Going to be 103F today, but I don’t believe it.

Get a call from a CEO, who says, “I have this burning in my gut all the time. Butterflies and napalm.”

Nice turn of a phrase. I laugh to myself because I never laugh at CEOs. Not a good practice, ungentlemanly.

So, he continues, “Does it ever get better? You were a CEO for 33 years, when did it all settle down and the flaming butterflies took a vacation?”

I wanted to comfort him, but I always speak the truth, so I hesitated for a second.

“They never go away,” I said in my most comforting Saint Michael the Archangel voice. “You know how sometimes when we discuss one of the List of Horribles and I tell you, ‘Sorry, that’s normal.’?”

The List of Horribles

“Yes, you also say the only normal people are the ones we don’t know very well. I get that,” says the CEO. “When did the flaming butterflies go away and everything was peaceful, calm, and you didn’t lay awake in bed thinking about things? Tormented by things?”

“Sorry, amigo,” I said. “They never go away. In fact, what you see as butterflies, flaming butterflies even. They become condors. Big, vicious condors with enormous talons that rip your guts apart while they are bathing in acid. On bad nights, you can feel their talons slicing and the acid flowing into your abdomen. When you scale, your problems scale with you.”

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07/25/19

CEO Shoptalk — Knowing WHY

Long time ago, I got a call from a CEO, says, “Wow, that worked like a champ. Thanks.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, so we chatted. Apparently, he had had a problem and I had told him to look at something on The Musings of the Big Red Car website, he did, he applied it, and it worked. Problem solved. Bravo!

Then, I asked him the money question, “Do you know WHY that worked?” 

Image result for success images

Painful, awkward, ask-Dad-to-marry-his-daughter-style silence ensued.

“CEO, do you know WHY that worked?”

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07/1/19

CEO Shoptalk

OK, so this lazy friend of mine — who I owe a favor — says to me, “Big Red Car, I like the ‘CEO Shoptalk’ series, but why don’t you put them all in one place?”

“You’re too lazy to use the SEARCH function on the website?”

“Yeah, bite me.”

So, here it is, y’all.

This is you filled with wisdom.

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07/1/19

CEO Shoptalk — Situational Awareness

CEOs have a hard job. Keeping it is one of the most difficult parts of the job. Keeping your job as a CEO may depend on your ability to understand the situation — something pilots call “situational awareness.”

In an airplane, you have several instruments that an instrument-trained pilot scans to determine the situation — speed, direction, level flight, climbing, descending, fuel status, GPS (redundant), and George (George is the autopilot). I have taken to calling George Georgette.

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05/21/19

The Energy Source v The Energy Sink Theory of Life

Big Red Car here on a wet Austin By God Texas day. It is May, y’all, and it is time to contemplate the Memorial Day floods.

Here is a pic from the 1981 Memorial Day floods, my first personal intro to the phenomenon. This pic is taken at the bridge in front of Hut’s Hamburgers, home of some of the best burgers on the planet. There were car lots next to Shoal Creek and hundreds of cars ended up in the creek.

Image result for images austin texas memorial day floods

When you come to Austin, you are going to want to get a Hut’s Hamburger. Trust me on this. Get the hickory burger.

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05/17/19

Fountain of Youth v Fountain of Wisdom/Experience — For CEOs Only

Grayish, cool day in the ATX which gets me thinking about the journey a startup CEO makes from ignorance to wisdom — OK, you do know that’s the journey, right?

As a young leader, I knew next to nothing about everything — so I thought, but I did have an advantage as I’d been in the Army for five years and had run largish outfits. My last command was 600 men in a unit that should have been 186 (The Army was contracting form Vietnam War levels and discharging a lot of draftees. I housed, fed, trained, disciplined them until their magic date arrived — a wild bunch. What a nightmare.).

Truly, everything I ever needed to know to be a CEO I learned in that assignment, but I just didn’t know it. I was 25.

I was young and dumb. I was drinking from the Fountain of Youth and Inexperience. There was a long line to get a cup of that stuff.

Some thirty-three years later, I was filled to overflowing with wisdom and experience, so much so that today I advise startup CEOs and assist venture capitalists prying their fully funded oxen out of ditches.

I can’t quite put my finger on when I stopped bathing in the Fountain of Youth and took up station in the Fountain of Wisdom and Experience. I just know I did.

OK, it was probably five years until I even knew there was such a thing.

Read your Malcolm Gladwall Outliers to learn why it takes five years.

Outliers: The Story of Success by [Gladwell, Malcolm]

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04/17/19

The Character Traits and Skills of the Successful CEO — Accountability

Cool day in the ATX and I like it. So, we are back to talking to and about CEOs. One of the most important elements of a successful company derives from the CEO’s creation of an environment of accountability.

Accountability is a two way street — the accountability of those from on high to those they serve and those served to those on high. Let me translate that: accountability goes up, down, and sideways.

Accountability? I’m confused, Big Red Car

OK, we have different levels of accountability:

 1. The bosses are accountable to the workers.

 2. The workers are accountable to the bosses for doing their jobs and accomplishing their objectives.

 3. Everyone is accountable to their peers.

 4. The CEO is uniquely accountable to the Board of Directors.

 5. The Board of Directors is accountable to the shareholders and the CEO.

One point that is essential — it takes a long time to develop an all-encompassing environment of accountability, but there are elements of it that should be in place from the beginning. Let’s break it down.

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12/16/18

Recruiting v Hiring

Big Red Car here on a day with brilliant sunshine, bit of a chill, and off to church to pray for all of us. Glorious Sunday!

So, the other day we were talking with some overcaffeinated CEOs about hiring.

One point that was left off was the utilization of recruiting as a part of the hiring mindset.

Image result for images of lions

This is you with a candidate in recruiting mode. You are a beast, the King of the Jungle. But, hey, you knew that, right?

When the lion lays down with the lamb, the lamb is not going to get much sleep. Recruitment, back on topic.

Stop — recruiting is different than hiring.

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