CEO's Diary: Not so much fun

Mmm...

I suspect that your unease is not too dissimilar to the feelings of your number 3 in accounts. You feel a bit undermined, because you haven't been consulted. But at least your pal and Chair are going to talk to you about it...

Values

You are irritated because you are uncomfortable, I would guess. And perhaps you are uncomfortable because you know you are going to have to talk about values. As an avid reader of your blog, I can see you have a very clear and strong set of values, but it's always uncomfortable to have to discuss them and know that you might have to defend them.

Your friend's choice of book and your comments about Sunday attendance suggests he might know a bit in a religious context about spiritual direction; the principles of that don't need to be confined to a religious context.

Alternatively you could just go into the meeting, kneel down by his chair and say 'Bless me Father, for I have sinned' and take it from there... ;-)

What is the overall learning

.............every day is a school day...............

We all learn everyday. Or as somebody once said, evetybody makes mistakes, but wise men (and women) learn from them.

I do enjoy this diary.

Stressed employee

Now that you (by your actions) have built wrong, your relationships with #3 and #9 (3 squared) and #3's authority/relationship with #9- how do you rebuild it right?

Do you need to apologise to either/both as part of that rebuilding? Accepting responsibilty for mistakes and failures and demonstrating learning from these is an important example to give.

What kind of framework do you intend to establish for these relationships in future? How do you make sure your future actions align with your words here?

Would you have intervened this way in another department? Or is this because it is finance and #3 was your direct report way back when you were CFO? Is there some letting go of finance you need to do here? Or do you need to think about how you interact with all around you?

Team player?

Having read this diary since pretty much day one, I wonder if I am the only person who has noticed a distinctly more aggressive tone to the entries since achieving CEO status?

This latest 'incident' is a case in point. You have made mention before of 'having to win'. That is not a team ethic in my opinion.

That's just my observation and has no qualification behind it, I should add.

What's it allabout

Management, in my humble opinion, is aboout managing the resource that you have at your disposal. Be that people or commodities, i suspect that your business has both.

The key element in all of this, again in my humble opinion, is that it is a team game. The team win and lose, not any individual. It should be about US, not me, and certainly not them!
Once we talk about US, we are halfway to getting through the obstacles that the daily rigours of business throw at us.

I am also pleased that your aspirations are the same as mine. To manage the business, not own it or be a tycoon, just a good manager.
If you ever find the book, give me a shout!

Cheers

MBA?

Have a look at some of the distance learning MBAs...

Clive Woodward....

... is quite into making the team working for a mutual benefit. "Teamship" he calls it. Might be worth looking at one of his books next time you're in that bookshop.

Scoring Goals

I don't think it's a management book you need but something on game theory. Because that's why you're doing this - you're playing games. You want to make the company successful, not because you'd get rich, not because you'd have thousands of people hanging on your whim, but because you want to Win the Game.

That's why you enjoy ideas such as moving into different markets, buying companies etc. You're getting to roll the dice in a way and fulfilling a need that is no longer satisfied by just managing a company that is standing still. It's possibly what's going on with one or two cock-ups managementally, you feel the urge to act when sometimes outcomes would be better if you left things be.

helpful books

You might find the one minute manager series of books helpful in clarifying your ideas. Nothing earth shattering, but cheap, quick and easy to read, with down to earth advice that does work - if you can put up with the way they tell you!! I work as an interim FD and use these to develop internal staff to replace me and work as reasonable team leaders and people managers. Hope this helps.

Management book

If you are interested in a book on people management, I'd recommend
The Art of Japanese Management by Richard Tanner Pascale and Anthony J. Athos. I think the management issues that you have come up against are dealt with in it.

Special needs

The local 'partnership with parents' group should be able to help if there are problems with the new school - www.parentpartnership.org.uk to find the local one.

If the special needs are on the autistic spectrum (where moving school is always a big worry) there's a lot of advice at www.mugsy.org

Personnel

So the member of the accounts team that you upset is back and smiling. That's good to hear about #3. What about the woman who went off sick...?

A clue...

So who else is now desperately trying to remember where those other clues were about what the CEO's company did (there were some after the Belgian problem, and some with the new version of the product) prior to going down to look at the local branch of Northern Rock...?

Mike Truman

Does anyone like the prospect of a bad debt?

The simple answer is credit insurance - no business should be without it. There is no need to take risks. With online instant decisions plus automated collection procedures when things start to go wrong and 90% of the debt paid out if collection fails, it's a 'no-brainer'. When the insurance company will not cover the debt and you have to turn down a customer for credit, you can be the 'good guy'. All you have to say is "We insure all our debts. I'm sorry, the insurance company says "No", so it will need to be payment up front". Customers just accept it and pay up front, or walk away and take their risk with them.

Debt Insurance is good...

...if you can get it but is never the whole solution. Credit insurance is not always available. Can anyone tell me where I can get cover on GM at present? Insisting on cash up front from such customers would have the same effect as giving notice to withdraw supply.
The one time I was involved with a claim on such a policy the insurer's insisted on a percentage of ongoing trading with the new owners of the old business to reclaim their losses. I argued that this was effectively a backdated premium and unfair but they refused to budge. We changed insurer the following year.
So insurance can help but isn't the whole answer to risk. You have to keep on top of the account, resolve disputes quickly, keep to credit limits, have the guts to put your major customer on stop and work to increase your customer base so you are not overly dependant on one account.

time for an MBO ?

reading your comments, it seems you may have become disenchanted with working for absentee shareholders (although that is what happens in quoted companies) Have you considered buying out the former CEO and his wife ?

MBO

YOU might be happy to maintain the current status quo. But given the shareholder issues, how can you guarantee that this situation will continue to exist indefinately?

It might be wise to thoroughly investigate the MBO option so you have a B plan ready to roll if the shareholder relationship worsens. What would you do then, after an MBO if circumstances forced this upon you?
If you wanted a plan with an eventual exit strategy, how about an MBO, followed by a growth strategy for the business before floating on AIM in a few years time?

Are there any other alternatives that could be explored to resolve the shareholder issues?