March 22, 2005

• Number 4 might be "don't link to articles that you need a subscription to Fortune to access, you moron." Sorry about that.
• seems like you hit it on the head, Fes. I'd add that you should encourage improvements that don't necessarily have a direct relation to budget/time constraints. Also, make it clear that you hold yourself to the same standards as you hold everyone else. and make coffee.
• Does being a CEO really need good qualifications besides business smarts and the ability to lead and manage? Those are not rare talents, and I've never understood why executive positions are as hyped as they are, much less be worth tends of millions of dollars.
• Obviously you and your comrades discuss the matter at the union meeting and collectivise the enterprise, creating democratic structures in close consultation with the communities you're working in, ultimately electing a flexible executive based on skills, values and merit, making sure to have an effective mechanism for recall in case unforeseen problems emerge somewhere down the line. On day two you set to work on the perpetual motion engine.
• So Fes, get me a cup of coffee, and cut and paste that story so I can read it as I sip.
• ...and at all times protect your red stapler.
• I think another important thing to think about is appropriate benefits packages and incentives. And I'm not just talking about a good dental plan, I'm talking about the priorities of workers. For example, I was never aspiring to the corner office or lunch with the big boss or a plaque in the hallway, what I really wanted was comp days and telecommuting privledges--both of which were appropriate to my job, but I worked for an old school firm that believed that time served was more important than my actual contribution. I think not being greedy is underrated too.
• Quality Product, on Time, on Budget. Choose two of the three.
• 1. behave so that people will tell you the truth. when they fuck up, do not hang them out to dry, unless it's a pattern of serial offending. again and again, i've seen managers who have punished bearers of bad news so severely that their areas became like soviet russia: the grain harvest was always exceeding targets while the people starved. 2. you're in business. act like it. when your project loses money, kill it. do not do things that have no business value. do do things that have value (ie whose return exceeds the costs). again, many times i've seen projects run on and on because of an inability to admit fault by management, at great cost to the organisation, while key bits of infrastructure started crapping out for lack of investment. to put this another way: having encouraged clear-eyed views and honesty from your staff, exercise these virtues yourself. 3. (and here i put on my cynic hat) read your Machiavelli. You are the Prince. Now, you may find the advice distasteful, but be assured that your competitors really are acting like this, so at least be aware what they're up to. 4. wherever possible, choose your underlings. choose them for the maximum diversity of personality consistent with group coherence, and then turn them loose. 9/10 of being a really good boss is letting other people do the work. "When the sage succeeds, the people say, we did it ourselves". You need the right people for this to work though. (i'm an independent IT person. i see a lot of corporations. i have deliberately chosen to stay out of them.)
• Your customers >>> wall street. Your employees >>> wall street. Don't let what the retards on wall street want drive your decisions. That is how you run a company more like costco and less like walmart, and how you avoid pulling an enron. True story- a company that makes computer security software had an advanced research division that funded itself by working on DARPA and NSF contracts. The work done by this division would not be put into the next release of the company's retail software, but it did benefit the security research community, and had the potential to be integrated into retail products down the line. This self-funding research division was cut to raise the company's profit to employee ratio. And if that wasn't enough, the company also purchased not one, but two products from other companies that performed the same functions as software produced by this division. WTF? Wall street may like to see your company raise the P/E ratio and make strategic purchases, but what you actually did was purchase software you already had, and then fired the people who produced it for you at no cost to you. GG. Just don't be stupid. And don't choose directors/executives that would do stupid things. I think that's 95% of it right there.
• And 5: watch The Office. Realise that you are in management, you are not one of the lads, and your actions and words now have different weight. There is nothing you can do about it, so don't humiliate people by making them pretend otherwise.
• Final thought: your question was "what make a good senior executive"? I think there's a big difference between the qualities that make a good one, and the qualities that enable a swift rise into that position. (assume "good" here means "successfully increases the value to shareholders over the long term"). The nature of that difference I leave as an exercise for the reader.
• Fes, you want to read a book called "Good to Great" which addresses this exact area in great detail. They went in with no preconceptions, and their conclusions are both intuitively sensible and consistant with my experiences of good and bad corporate structures in ways I hadn't entirely considered before. Wish I could remember the author to recommend it better.
• dental plan Lisa needs braces.
• "Good to Great" and its companion volume "Built to Last" were written by Jim Collins. It tries to answer your question, Fes, about what makes a great CEO. The conclusion that Collins reached after studying hundreds of corporations is that great corporations require CEOs who have what he calls Level 5 leadership. He defines this to be "humility + will". Not surprisingly, celebrity CEOs need not apply. A eye-opening and in the end, an optimistic take. Other good books i found very helpful (i spent 9 years on the corporate manglement ladder): "Principle-centered Leadership" by Steven Covey (yes, he's overexposed, but the message is still dead-on). And finally to cover off the really dumbass things: "13 Fatal Errors Managers Make and How You can Avoid them" by Brown. Read book, prevent disaster.