Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

This post is the 2nd draft, and is still a work-in-progress.  Check back later for updates!

As part of the Autopsy 2 process, I have been working one-on-one with the firm Shirlaws.

One facet of their engagement has been to work with me on improving my leadership.

Their approach (which I accept) is that the disappointments that have come our way have been ultimately my responsibility (whether it’s been because of the “wrong people on the bus”, or the wrong culture, or insufficient direction, or whatever).

The corollary of this is that it’s also my responsibility to fix whatever’s broken.  This I am in the process of doing (following on from the Autopsy 2 process).

Part of what they are helping me to understand is that the CEO should have 3 core enduring roles, which should continue to be my focus well into the future.

These are as follows:

1)     Set and hold the Vision for the business

I can appreciate that, whilst I had a vision for where I wanted to take the company in my head, it was a bit garbled (and certainly not communicated clearly).  I can see now how this made it so much harder for every other aspect of the business to function optimally.

As such, I am taking some time in January to post about various aspects of our Vision online – starting with this summary of “where our bus is headed”.

I can’t share everything (obviously?) but am trying to be as open as possible in order that people (potential employees, partners, shareholders and others) can self-select into our business, if it appeals to them.

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2)     Manage the Energy of the business

This is partly about “getting the right people on the bus” and then, once they are on the bus, ensuring that everyone’s interests remain aligned with where the bus is headed.

Hence, establishing – and communicating – our vision for the types of people we need to have on the bus forms a part of this responsibility.

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3)     Coach

Once the right people are on the bus, and in the right seats, and the bus is headed in the right direction “all” that is left for me to do is provide ongoing coaching to the team (i.e. some semblance of working ON the business, not IN the business).

Shirlaws like to call it “coaching, not playing”.

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Yes, I know I will have a load of other stuff to do, in addition to these three.

However, it’s my view that those “everything else” jobs are those that I should try to do in a way in which they no longer become necessary, or can be done by someone else (hence continuing with an approach I have followed for many years of trying make myself redundant).

Tags: coaches, leadership, management of software company, roles and responsibilities, strategic planning

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under Role of CEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.