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Yeah, well, that’s one. A good one. Partner disagreements are part of being a CEO.

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

How about this one: Holding fast on a price point you know is correct, since every other customer (save one prospect demanding to blow it up) cheerfully purchase at that point–with a partner whining that we should cave?

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It sounds obvious, but a CEO has to want to be in charge and then has to take charge.

One does not receive power, one takes power.

Courage, even in the most desperate situations, is continuing to act when you don’t want to.

Once you have tasted command, power — there is no other flavor which is as essential and as delicious.

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

they must always be floating through your mind driving with the top down.

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When the Big Red Car is not writing blog posts, he is writing haikus or is it limericks?

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

Thanks.

I’ve been in some challenging situations in some organizations: Sometimes what I did was effective and the results good, and sometimes not.

The situation that would cost me sleep, give my a sick stomach, a bad headache, etc. would be one that threatened serious harm or the end of the company.

More broadly I see the possibilities as between two extremes, (1) move fast and (2) move slowly, in a sports team context:

(1) Fast. Pull together the players, practice one afternoon, head into the schedule, and make personnel changes between games and even during games. Upside: Get into the real games right away. Downside: Risk losing nearly all the early games.

(2) Slow. Carefully select the team members. Have several months of practice, e.g., shirts and skins, have time to train and develop some of the players who do have potential, have time to make personnel changes, scout the competition, have a deep bench, then charge into the schedule of the real games with confidence that can win most, maybe nearly all, the games.

(1), (2) are extremes and only sports analogies, but maybe they are pertinent. Analogies from other areas of work — military, engineering, financial, legal — are also possible and maybe similarly pertinent.

My suspicion is that good planning and careful work can make an effort relatively immune to lots of unpredictable but, really, not unusual, exogenous nonsense. E.g., Ike’s Overlord suffered from (A) Bradley’s too little shelling of Omaha Beach, (B) Monty’s too slow progress at Caen, (C) the big storm in the English Channel, (D) the challenges of the hedgerow country, and maybe more, but STILL was successful. In strong contrast, Monty’s Market Garden was planned too quickly and needed a lot of stuff to happen just as planned (it didn’t) or the whole effort would fail (it did).

My suspicion is that when big disasters hit, the effort had charged forward too fast with vast goals with half-vast planning.

Maybe I’m being too simplistic and wrong.

Maybe much of the difference is good leadership: Maybe often really can move too quickly and when stuck in some swamp — bills unpaid, employees leaving, Sheriff coming to lock down assets for unpaid bills, no money for expense accounts, big customers screaming that even the basic billing was both late and badly wrong, some employees close to fist fights in the offices, internal fights with some cliques trying to sabotage other cliques, etc. — use good leadership to get the now barefoot employees to come together (lunch for all from some loaves of bread and a block of sliced American cheese, paid for by the CEO personally), get the work done, and be successful.

I see the (1)-(2) difference as not just leadership but solid plans, the difference between (A) the stalemate in the trenches in WWI and (B) what Schwarzkopf did to Saddam in Gulf War I.

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Loyalty and fairness are cousins.

Loyalty can rub up against one’s fiduciary duty to operate an enterprise solely for the benefit of the shareholders.

The conflicts are real and, sometimes, irreconcilable. That’s why they’re tough.

They’re not always perfect answers even when there are perfect facts.

Loyalty, like respect, is earned. Loyalty, however, does not have a very lengthy shelf life. The day after you resign as a CEO, you will understand this.

Loyalty, like respect, is a two way street. You get what you give.

If I could only obtain one, it would be fairness.

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com