I get a lot of emails from readers of this blog. I answer all of them. Often when someone asks me a question, I just call them under the theory of, “If it can be dispensed with within two minutes or less, do it now.”
A substantial number of emails are about The Wisdom of the Campfire which is the CEO coaching business I have run for a decade. It does not have a website; I do not market it; I only take referrals, but you can refer yourself if you have that gear.
A common suggestion is that I write more about CEO coaching. This is balanced by a number of other suggestions that suggest I write more/less about politics — nah, but thanks. I try to only write about policy.
There is a writer who demands I write fanciful Army stories. One writer has asked me on a few occasions to thin the herd by dropping out in a very final and forceful sort of way.
CEO coaching is an interesting endeavor. It is based upon a single foundation — is the CEO ready to be coached?
I often say, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
Board meeting in progress – which one is the CEO/founder? Note the gender diversity, lively engaged debate, and relaxed business casual dress code.
That is not an original utterance, but I have said it so many times that it borders on obnoxious which is often where the Big Red Car lives, so nothing new there.
When the student is ready . . . . .
Being a CEO/founder, particularly for a new CEO/founder, is a tough job made all the tougher by inexperience.
Odd thing — if many CEOs/founders knew more, they would talk themselves out of doing what they propose to do, so sometimes ignorance is a feature, not a bug. Mull that over.
CEOing is not nearly as tough if you have the ability to consult with someone who has been a CEO for 33 years and an adviser to CEOs for 10 more.
This falls under the maxim: “In the school of hard knocks, it is always more efficient and less expensive to rent wisdom and experience, particularly bad experiences, than to buy them at full retail.”
In the end, the new CEO is a supplicant wandering the desert in search of the wisdom to run a business. Wisdom is a hard, expensive get often available only at full tuition.
Wisdom is the application of good judgment over a protracted period of time.
Good judgment is the product of experience.
Experience is often the product of costly bad judgment.
The hack on this is to rent the wisdom — voila, why a CEO coach can be a good thing.
What makes it work?
If the student is ready, then the question evolves into: “Is the student coachable?”
Believe it or not, this is often a problem. Part of being an Alpha Male/Female/Cisgender CEO/founder these days is a buoyant sense of confidence (often totally unfounded in any semblance of reality) that one sees or feels a VISION that others cannot.
How can a CEO/founder be coached by someone who does not SEE what they see?
The practical answer to that is that a good CEO coach endeavors to understand the CEO/founder’s VISION without using a judgmental lens, may even gently probe and tentatively challenge the VISION, but a good CEO coach is not an antagonist.
A good CEO coach knows that every idea will ultimately be tested and either embraced or rejected by the market and that the best thing to do is to get to the market and let it speak.
There is wisdom at the edge of the campfire and there is wisdom in the crowd.
There is something to be said for following the assembly instructions
If you have ever assembled a large and complex bit of IKEA merchandise then you have contemplated murder because you have tried to follow assembly instructions written by someone who is not a native speaker of your language. In addition, they have made it more challenging by hiding or failing to provide one or two little plastic bags filled with screws, bolts, nuts, or other bits of essential joinery.
[I have it on good authority that when Saint Peter does the pre-interview on Judgment Day, he will ask, “How many pieces of IKEA furniture did you assemble in your miserable life?”]
A CEO coach understands how Vision, Mission, Strategy, Tactics, Objectives, Values, and Culture fit together and they have done it before — maybe many times.
The tenth time you assemble IKEA bookshelves, you do not have to find the assembly instructions because you could write them.
Often what makes a CEO/founder more comfortable is simply seeing the graphical presentation of how the company thing fits together — the difference between the written IKEA instructions and the pictorial instructions. I like both.
The List of Horribles
In the life of every CEO/founder is a visit — repeated visits — to the List of Horribles, the certain moments of trial that every CEO/founder will eventually encounter even if the Holy Ghost is a silent investor and agrees to sit on the board. Sorry.
The List of Horribles
A good CEO coach is able to talk the CEO/founder in off the ledge, back into his/her chair, and to deploy years of experience in what works and what does not work as it relates to the List of Horribles — renting experience.
The Sounding Board
When I was raising tons of money for my own business endeavors one of the things I liked about the process was the validation that at least one other person on the Planet Earth thought my idea was “good enough” to put their money where my mouth was.
Every CEO/founder needs a sounding board against which to bounce off ideas. I get a lot of singular calls — some are genuine emergencies — in which a CEO/founder requires validation or rejection of some important decision.
I have an orderly way of approaching the issue (it is known as critical thinking – a disciplined process of evaluating, analyzing, and weighing information, data, and facts rather than relying upon emotion and feelings) and lead the CEO/founder to the Promised Land.
In every instance, the CEO/founder has known the answer, but not how to get to it. A good CEO coach can help a CEO/founder to make better decisions by deploying critical thinking.
[Pro tip: Do NOT use a board member as a sounding board as they may become alarmed and they WILL fire you. Thought that needed to be said. One of the most important objectives of any CEO/founder – CEO coach relationship is the long term sanctity of the CEO/founder’s job.]
Try it, you might like it
In all of my coaching endeavors, in hundreds of assignments, I have liked all of my clients.
In a tiny handful of instances, I have told someone, “I am not the right CEO coach for you.” I did not fire them; I sent them to a better place.
The assignments do not last forever. I have had six month tenures and four year tenures, but eventually they all end.
In a tiny handful of instances I have said, “You can swim. Take off the water wings. Push off and start swimming. Call me if you need me.”
This has only happened when the CEO/founder stops being a regular communicant at our scheduled meetings. In every instance, I have heard back from the CEO/founder.
Very rarely do I meet clients face-to-face. Not surprising as I have had clients in Canada, Ireland, Mexico, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, California, New York, and Waco. I am only mentioning foreign countries, not normal places like Chicago and Richmond.
I have had a number of clients in Austin By God Texas and that always involves barbecue. The far away clients are more efficient and I love Zoom and hate MS Teams (buggy).
I get quite a few referrals from venture capitalists which can be a problem — for them — as I discharge my duty only to the CEO/founder and will not chat with a VC about “his” CEO/founder.
Like I said, I am the CEO/founder’s advocate and keeping the job is one of the KPIs.
Bottom line it, Big Red Car, it’s Friday
The business world is not getting any easier in the Age of the Endless Pandemic. CEO/founders need every edge, every advantage they can muster to do their difficult jobs.
We’re all in this together and nobody is getting out alive, so really — what do you have to lose?
Maybe a CEO coach is in the cards for you. Contact me if I can help.
Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas! God bless America and the whole world!
