CEO to CEO

The Wheels Coming off the Bus

By Robert Sher

What could ever be wrong with a strong, growing top line? What would be wrong with running a lean company? The answer: Too much work to do and not enough people or resources to execute it well.

There comes a tipping point, when an organization goes from hectic, busy and rushed, to being overwhelmed, chaotic and hopeless. When the wheels fully separate from the bus. It’s not pretty. The ugliness usually includes employees yelling and screaming; angry customers, vendors cutting off supply, resignations without notice, hostility in the workplace, and much worse. Perhaps you’ve seen this in your organization.

The Wheels Coming off the Bus, the seventh in the Defeating Corporate Distraction series, will take you through some common issues and techniques related to this common distraction. To access the entire series written to date, click here.

Functional Areas Not Synchronized

By Robert Sher

Some companies walk like Frankenstein. They are stiff, with legs, arms and head coordinated in only the crudest sense; the parts of the monster having been chopped off from different dead bodies and crudely sewn together with little attention to the connection of nerves. The act of creation is unnatural; from the sky, in one big bolt of lightning Frankenstein comes alive. Without good coordination, the monster doesn’t know his own strength, accidentally (at first) killing people, then growing confused, angry and afraid all at once. After a sad string of events, Dr. Frankenstein dies and the monster commits suicide on a funeral pyre (at the North Pole).

In our organizations, we hire our people from various other companies, toss them together into different departments in our company, then sometimes sit back and wonder why the various departments don’t work well together. We wonder why our progress toward our objectives is clumsy, delayed, and occasionally self-destructive.

It’s because we forgot to sew our organization’s nerves together, to test them, and to allow them time to grow strong before we call on them to perform in an agile, effective manner.

Debates without Decisions

By Robert Sher

After a blissfully distracting weekend I walk into the conference room for our Monday 8am top team meeting. The view of the San Francisco Bay distracts my attention as I wait for the last VP to arrive. Ever eager and feisty, Marie starts talking about the product launch strategy with the four others, bringing up contentious points that I could have sworn we had debated twice before. I notice a barge pick up speed on the water, and my mind drifts to thinking about the 1993 movie Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray, where he had to repeat the same day, over and over again. There was something he needed to learn before time would move forward again. I wondered what I needed to learn here to stop this re-debating problem, because it is maddening.

This topic, the fifth in the series, Debates without Decisions, will take you through some common issues and techniques to get just the right amount of analysis.

Data and Analysis Obsession

By Robert Sher

I hate making mistakes. They waste money, make me look foolish and I feel embarrassed. When I wore a younger man’s clothes, I would tirelessly dig for data, and analyze away. I remember with pride a massive spreadsheet I built in 1983 that held that detailed historical data and projections for three related entities. Recalculating took ten minutes, yet I waited with baited breath to see my new financial future each time. This topic, the fourth in the series, Data and Analysis Obsession will take you through some common issues and techniques to get just the right amount of analysis. To access the entire series written to date, click here.

Some organizations get obsessed with fact finding and analysis, and they keep it up until it’s too late. Too late might mean the decision was imposed upon them. Perhaps the market window closed. Perhaps the product failed horribly before the recall decision was made, and that meant it went legal and political both. These bad outcomes are in addition to the time, cost and effort of analyzing far in excess of what reality requires.

Defeating Corporate Distraction: Strategy Tinkering

By Robert Sher

If I had just one wish I could make on behalf of chief executives everywhere, it would be to defeat corporate distraction. Distractions impact strategy and execution alike, and are both human and institutional. Collectively, these distractions deplete cash, destroy performance and stymie growth. If my wish were granted, I’d wager that both top and bottom lines would double.

Please realize that if one ever gets just one wish, the choice is a monumental judgment call. The issue is not just what one should wish for, but what one chooses not to wish for. I realize that I’m not choosing to wish for the perfect strategy, not for a big pile of cash to fuel the business and not for a ground breaking invention. I’m wishing for the defeat of corporate distraction because in my 23 years as a chief executive and from the hundreds of CEOs I’ve heard and helped, the most pervasive problem is being distracted from pursuit of the prize. In most cases, CEOs already have ideas about what the prize looks like and have a good idea about how to attain it. Most of my work today is helping chief executives see the prize with greater clarity and conviction, helping them to see the path to the prize, and then helping them beat back all of the distractions as they navigate down the path toward the prize.

Heaping on the Work--but will your team keep up?

By Robert Sher

We CEOs and our top teams will have to double-time it for a while in the early recovery period until new opportunities turn into free cash flow. Simply put, we will be asking our teams to tackle new challenges without giving them new resources to offload other tasks. But will your team keep up?

When a Business Tune-Up Isn’t Enough

By Robert Sher

Tuning-up your manufacturing business to run more and more efficiently may not be enough to insure a healthy, growing, prosperous company over the next ten years. Take a look at the big picture. Compare your business and/or industry in 2000 versus now, then extend the trend lines to 2020. What do you see?

Powerfully Executing for the Upturn

This article is for companies in a slump right now, due in large part to the downturn. It is not targeted toward companies that are in serious jeopardy of closing, nor is it for companies that are growing strongly despite the downturn.

By Robert Sher

Close your eyes and imagine your company’s future. You’ve been hanging on since the downturn hit, first staunching the cash bleed, but now you’re stable, perhaps even getting ahead slightly. You know your company will be around for a few more years at least, if the economy doesn’t slow much further. Congratulations. Many firms are not going to make it.

Keep those eyes closed. Picture yourself a few months from now. Customers and clients start talking to you again. They start asking for RFQ’s, and a few orders break loose. You realize that the ice is thawing, the time for hibernation may be over, and your hope for a bright, order-rich world is soon to be upon you. This is the time you’ve been longing for. Is your company ready to make the most of it? Will you be operating from your business’s power zone, where you have the maximum ability to create results? This chance won't come again soon.....

Full Speed Ahead but Going No-Where

Summary: In such adverse conditions that exist today in the economy, chief executives must be realistic about achievable objectives and not over-spend or panic in a futile attempt to grow revenues or profits. At the same time, companies must run at their most efficient at watch out adjust for nasty surprises that could spell the end for the organization.

Business Planning Workshop: First Ten Minutes

Robert Sher opens his two-hour Business Planning workshop with the Pro-Track class of the Northern California chapter of the National Speakers Association. Watche the first ten minutes here.