Big Red Car here. Hey, it’s damn cold in the ATX and I don’t like it. Not one damn bit. It’s currently 37F. Brrrrr! Hot house Texan Big Red Car.
Well, Big Red Car, take some comfort — it’s supposed to be 70F before the day is over.
So The Boss is working with about 15 CEOs. Some are in swaddling clothes rolling around in the crib and some are full bodied companies staring down $10-100MM in revenues and with big profits. Big swinging…….well, we won’t go there.
Interestingly enough several of them are women and the women are in the upper quartile of the talent and potential sweepstakes. Very interesting indeed.
The gratification of progress
There is nothing more gratifying to The Boss than to see the progress that his brilliant CEOs are constantly making. Oh and it is constant and substantial.
Here are several common themes:
1. It is gratifying to see a CEO envision a web based product and breath life into it. Several CEOs have literally gone from the whiteboard to launch. It has been an excruciatingly painstaking process but THEY have done it. Well played to all of ya’ll.
2. It is gratifying to see growth — real growth — which shows up in revenue and pipeline reports. Some of these folks have grown their businesses substantially in less than two years. Huge growth spurts. Not by accident but through assessment and strategy and tactics. These folks are never going backward and will be pressing forward with vigor and energy.
3. It is gratifying to see CEOs take complete control of their businesses by retooling their Vision, Mission, Strategy, Tactics, Objectives, Values and Culture. When this simple work is done, it is liberating for the CEO. Knowing its value, The Boss gets such a kick out of the eureka moment of self-discovery that CEOs enjoy when they get it out of their heads, off their whiteboards and into print.
4. It is gratifying to see CEOs begin to manage their team. Several CEOs have had their first offsite strategy sessions with their team and have returned with an “over the moon” sense of well being. Why not? They are both leaders and managers. This sense of progress is a dividend paid directly to the CEO. Well done!
5. It is gratifying to see CEOs draw from within themselves the solution to problems which had bedeviled them — not Manhattan Project type problems but the type of problems that CEOs are always wrestling with — strategic issues, hiring issues, partner issues, litigation. All of these solutions are in there, the CEO has just needed a bit of coaxing to find the solutions.
6. It is gratifying to see a CEO and his company land a huge, big client that they have stalked and hunted with vigor and cunning. The Boss has smiled watching CEOs mount their trophies.
7. It is gratifying to see a CEO organize her efforts to raise funds and to grasp the mechanical nature of fundraising. It is particularly gratifying to watch a CEO close a funding and to see the transformation and confidence that such a successful endeavor breathes into a CEO. Each time thereafter will be easier and easier.
8. It is gratifying to see a CEO shed his skin and become a company builder and not just a product developer. The first fledgling steps toward effective delegation make The Boss smile.
In all of these things, the CEO is the one in the spotlight. They have done it. The Boss may have assisted but the progress is marked with the CEO’s DNA.
The changes
When a CEO is able to accomplish something along the lines described above, there are changes which are wrought in the CEO and the enterprise. Irreversible changes. Positive changes.
When learning to fly an airplane, the student pilot is faced with the recognizable milestone of flying solo. One day the student and the instructor land the plane, the instructor endorses the student pilot’s log book, smiles at and wishes the student pilot well and then shuts the door. That next moment is a feeling of overwhelming loneliness tinged with excitement.
The pilot — the CEO in our analogy — takes off, makes a couple laps of the landing pattern, does a few touch and go landings and taxis back to the hangar. He has now soloed.
There the instructor cuts a big chunk out of the student pilot’s tee shirt and writes the name of the student, the location, the date, the instructor’s name and the tail number of the plane in which the student pilot soloed. It is a memorable occasion and the student pilot is now going to receive more solo training — cross country flights, touch and go landing practices, navigation exercises.
More work to be done to get those wings but an irreversible change and a big milestone.
The same is true with CEOs — as they accomplish these important milestones, they too are irreversibly changed and their organizations are irreversibly changed. It is exciting and sometimes a bit lonely in the process.
This is the nature of the CEOing business. It is not for everyone but for those for whom it is the correct calling, it is a constant challenge of growth and development. And, oh yes, accomplishment.
The Boss is particularly gratified when he can play a small part in helping a CEO grow and develop. He’s did it himself for over 33 years — flirted with both triumph and disaster — and still remembers the day he flew solo and the anxiety that it all generated. Having done similar things now for hundreds of times the butterflies are gone, processes that work are ingrained but the thrill is never lost.
If you are a CEO or want to become a CEO and The Boss can assist you — [email protected], 512-656-1383. You’ve got nothing to lose but your trepidation.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Stay warm, stay safe and call someone who will be surprised to hear from you. Today.