Columbia Business School posted an article on Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, about his experience as an entrepreneur. The decision to hand over the reins was a tough one because, you guessed it, he had to relegate control. But it worked. “You need to know when to get out of the way and stop talking.” Craig said.
For every company, reaching that inflection point where things start to fall through the cracks is a true test of long-term viability. The exact metrics are different for every company, but the ability to anticipate these issues, add professional management to negotiate them and put ego aside in the pursuit of supporting the right outcome determines success or failure.
Not surprisingly, first-time founders fail more often than serial entrepreneurs at navigating these growth pains. Serial entrepreneurs more often have the self awareness to step aside or recruit executives with complementary strengths to support scale. Also, serial entrepreneurs more often go out and attract advisers who help hold them accountable to making these changes.
Catherine New at Columbia Business School recently posted some sagely CEO leadership advice, know thyself!
“It is important to know thyself. Acquiring self-consciousness is the most exquisite transformation that you make in your 30s and 40s,” said Shumeet Banerji, the CEO of Booz & Company. “Learn what you are good and bad at. Especially what you are bad at.” He also suggested that good leaders think in six to eight month campaigns. “Taken together, they are a course of action,” he said.
Shumeet followed that statement with 10 career development tips:
1. Pay attention to human capital and who you are as a human being; consider how you think about and construct problems.
2. Get and feed a network. If you only get in touch with people when you need something, it doesn’t work. Be helpful to others as well, even if it’s difficult to take the time and effort.
3. Find mentors. No one is good enough to sort out his problems on his own. Good mentors are the ones who have influenced you and paid attention to you. They not only advocate for you, but they are critical of you as well.
4. Seek diverse experiences and stretch yourself into areas where you are not naturally comfortable. Diverse experience builds character.
5. Be curious about the world and its issues; despite the pain of the financial crisis, it has been an accelerated learning curve.
6. Be interested or else you can’t be interesting. Nothing is worse than a dull dinner companion — you can be interested in anything.
7. Form an educated and distinctive point of view. It helps you make sense of abstraction. Have a worldview to see what forces are at play.
8. Read. At the minimum read a daily financial paper and a dozen good books a year.
9. Look after yourself. Careers are an endurance game and work happens to you more than any other activity.
10. Make time for people you love and who love you. It’s too early to let these people become a subsidiary early in your career. The thing about time is that it is very unforgiving.
McKinsey’s just put out another high quality article on helping CEOs to help their top leaders learn the new rules of the new economy. This is an important read for CEOs because it addresses executive behavior which has a trickle down effect through the rest of the organization.
The article hits the following points:
- Overcoming fear: breaking the cycle helps execs move towards higher productivity,
- Overcoming denial: leads to leading serious reassessments of current strategies,
- Overcoming learning blocks: leads to a reexamination of false ‘truths’ upon which the business and their careers were built.
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