The most difficult CEO skill: managing your own psychology
bhorowitz.com
bhorowitz.com
Every once in a while I come across a blog post that so totally nails something and I am reminded why professionals blogging about their craft is such an important development in the world of media.
Read this. I found it inspiring. But it also scared the shit out of me, and made me wonder at the few people who've made it as CEO.
PS: Notice how all the default pronouns in a Ben Horowitz post are female? I find that totally awesome.
I found it mostly distracting. I'm as progressive as it comes in this regard, but please - "separate the women from the girls"?
Sorts the pros from the wannabes, how's that?
In Ben's case, he's making a political statement, so the use of "her" is appropriate in that instance though.
It's actually been in English for a pretty long time, there is plenty of precedent. The people that complain loudest about grammar "mistakes" are often the least equipped to talk about them.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Singular_they
That said, constructions like "didn't realized" are best avoided.
> "If you manage a team of 10 people, it’s quite possible to do so with very few mistakes or bad behaviors."
His only mistake is thinking that 10 people is the limit. I think with some effort you can probably get to 30-40-50 people and still run it "with very few mistakes or bad behaviors."
To me that's the ideal. There are very few things a really well motivated, hard working, talented team of 50 can't do that a mixed-competence, unmotivated, bureaucratic team of 1000 can do.
Most people grow their companies to thousands of people without really thinking about it, because that's historically what you're supposed to do.
Not enough companies try to be small and "perfect".
No.
The reason 10 people can work like magic is that they all report to you. There are no middle managers, just people who get things done, plus one person to coordinate. Everybody knows what everybody else is doing, and the communication path is only one level.
The upper bound for this type of company is how many people you can manage personally. You can not manage 30 people, and you probably can't manage 20. Once you need to add a layer of managers under you who aren't actually getting shit done, the entire dynamic changes.
Things might start to get shaky at 50, but I seriously doubt it's impossible.
As for how it feels to the CEO I don't think you're right. The company I had experience with was run as a triumvirate with one slightly more powerful member. All three knew everything that was going on and had a hand in it, but two of them were experts in different areas and one was a generalist and overall vision-setter.
The CEO spent probably 80% of his time working on real projects with individuals and teams and 20% coordinating with his junior triumvirs.
He certainly was not was reduced to sitting in his office funneling orders through two people all day.
The same company that was wonderful to work for at 40 people imploded at 150.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbars_number
I think people misinterpret the concept of Dunbar's number. It isn't how many people you can keep track of -- it's how large of a team you can hold together, provided you spend massive amounts of your time on team-building. From the article:
>Dunbar has argued that 150 would be the mean group size only for communities with a very high incentive to remain together. For a group of this size to remain cohesive, Dunbar speculated that as much as 42% of the group's time would have to be devoted to social grooming.
Spending 42% of your time on social grooming isn't a very efficient way to run a company, though, especially when you only work 8 of your 16 waking hours (and that's generally considered a good thing).
* Soak up millions of dollars
* Make their department/manager/owner look/feel important
* Suck the last dregs of originality and usefulness out of a product or idea
Sorry, my inner cynic was spoiling for a fight. :)
Make it three pizzas, ha
"Jason was the one who had to live with the consequences." -> the people being fired have to live with the consequences. Jason only has to live with making the decision, which is much easier. Jeez.
Grump.
When I was running the Stanford Daily, we were bleeding cash and I had to lay off a 65 year old lady who had been working at the company for 10 years. She was reliable but did poor work and was costing the company tens of thousands of dollars annually. That conversation was not fun and the entire process was stressful. I can't imagine having to lay off an entire division, especially of people that I hired.
They're different kinds of hard, and they're also all worth thinking about. There's many places that articles and discussions are happening on being a better teacher or being a better parent too.
And this blog post (1) isn't gushing, and (2) has a lot of truth in it. I'm staying with a friend of mine in China who left IBM to start his own company. He's experiencing the whoa-holy-shit-I'm-the-guy-responsible feeling.
There really aren't too many things similar to it - being the final decisionmaker is its own kind of stress and neurosis. If things screw up, it's your fault alone and you have to live with that. In theory, that's true for everyone. In practice, there's a huge difference between being employed or contracted, and running your own shop or self-employed. The psychology of it is really, tangibly different - that's not glorification, that's just the facts here.
> the people being fired have to live with the consequences. Jason only has to live with making the decision, which is much easier. Jeez.
Have you ever recruited anyone to work for you, had it not work out, and had to let them go? It's one of the hardest, most gut-wrenching things you'll ever have to do. You asked someone to trust you, and you were wrong and someone else is going to suffer for it... and you have to pull the trigger now. Ask anyone who has had to lay off someone they recruited and brought into the company - it's miserably awful.
Agreed it's also bad for employees to be let go, but writing it off as "much easier" to say to someone, "I'm sorry, I made the wrong decision and you have to suffer for it"... I don't know, I'm guessing you've never had to do it. Very few things weigh so heavily on your conscience.
It was a case of survival, and I did not envy him for a second. I think he probably carries the emotional scars of that moment to this day.
In most cases you go through an adjustment period, and after a while you get desensitized - or you go crazy. The same happens with CEOs, you're not going to care the same about the 200th-time you fire somebody as you did with the first.
I'm not saying is easy, or that anybody can do it, but we need to step back a little. The same way praising a child about their smarts puts them in a well-I-can't-get-any-better locked position, glorifying CEOs prevents us from critically evaluating their performance or even suggesting there's a better way... After all, we can't possibly know how hard it is.
-> Yes. It wasn't fun, but it's less fun being fired.
"Very few things weigh so heavily on your conscience."
-> Realizing that you haven't been there for your kids. Accidentally killing a bicyclist with your car. Building a product that rips people off. I can easily write a really long list here of things that are harder than firing someone who is not working out.
Just saying.
" The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say: “I didn’t quit.”"
What a load of crap. For several million a year, neither would I.
I've been on the receiving end of a lay off, and I can assure you that letting someone go (especially if I was the one who hired them) is much more stressful psychologically than being let go off.
If you're so worried about the company's financial prospects while you earn more than anyone else in it, I don't have a ton of sympathy for you.
We're a small startup, and me and my cofounder earn less than everyone else in the company. As we grow, I expect our salaries to grow a bit, but they'll never be much higher than a median salary. Most really great people are compensated in stock options.
Was the article talking about small startups? I've worked for (more than) my share of small startups - most of the "CEO"s of small startups are closer to owner/proprieters than CEOs.
(I'm not gonna talk about parents; I've never been one and it seems pretty all-consuming to me. But there are an awful lot of parents out there who will happily tell you how insane being a parent is, so they're probably not a good example for your argument.)
This generalizes a bit too much. There are various kinds of teaching situations (college, private school, inner-city public school) and various kinds of CEO situations. Apples and oranges.
The psychological burden of teaching can be pretty intense. Depending on your situation you may have to deal with: unsupportive parents/administration, paying for school supplies out of your own small paycheck, noticing and reporting child abuse, dealing with the issues of your pregnant ninth graders, dealing with violence toward yourself and other students (including gun violence and gang violence), etc. all while you are trying to inspire in your students an appreciation for cosines.
"Nobody is more important than any other person, but some people are more important to the business. To your children, you are the most important person in the world, and I don't matter whatsoever to them."
He used it in the context of making it clear that some people would need to carry greater responsibilities, and would be held to a higher standard, and be remunerated differently - but everyone in the company deserved a high level of respect.
And, let's be clear - Ben is _also_ the person who suggests that it's _easier_ to teach a founder to be a CEO, then to take an outsider and have them successfully run a business. It would suggest that he believes that the true challenge is finding great Founders, not turning them into CEOs.
- executive hero-worship
- living in a fantasy world where parenting is not a fundamental activity in society
BTW, the gender stuff is NOT elidable. If y'all weren't mostly men, y'all would take women's work much more seriously, and be much more skeptical about the way heroic CEOs fail to acknowledge the woman who is caring for their kids in the typical narratives of their awesome business accomplishments.
Best parts:
” Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say: “I didn’t quit.”
and
"Focus on the road not the wall—When they train racecar drivers, one of the first lessons is when you are going around a curve at 200 MPH, do not focus on the wall; focus on the road. If you focus on the wall, you will drive right into it. If you focus on the road, you will follow the road. Running a company is like that."
And no, what separates the women from the girls is boobs.
So, the fact that Mr. Andressen and Ms. Bianchini have a prior relationship is unsurprising. To imply their romantic past conferred her this opportunity, in a way that a platonic friendship would not have, is dangerously close to calling her a whore.
(PS: I'm sorry to jump on you, and I empathize with your sentiment. But its one of those built in stereotypes that we need to actively fight within ourselves.)
It's the fact that Andreessen (arguably #1 guy in Silicon Valley) funded the company with his money and connections and then gave her the CEO job. He was in a position of power and conferred a benefit to a friend and former lover.
It's kind of like the guy that goes to work at his father's company as the CEO. Even if he warrants the appointment it's hard to feel the same level of respect (at least for me).
Trust me though, I do feel conflicted and guilty for thinking this. The problem is I can't tell which kind of cultural baggage I'm exhibiting: sexism or political correctness.
Uncertainty leads to fear and fear leads to panic. It's like driving a car blindly. What a CEO needs is a light which points to a right direction, whether this direction is really right or wrong is another topic.)
This is just my own view. All uncertainties can be grouped into two categories: Vision and Culture.
Vision is like a guiding system, it tells your customers (consumer, employee, and investor) where your company is going. Culture is like an internal machine which take your company to where you want to go. When these two things are defined and guidelines are created, uncertainties become clear. It's because now you have two groups of high-level guidelines to tell whether you should handle an uncertainty seriously or not.
However, even your company have a good vision and great culture, you will still feel uncomfortable. It's the feel like driving at 200 MPH when you are used to drive at 70 MPH. Experiences can certainly help to ease this feeling when you gradually increase driving speed.
The other way is to build a data-driven company from beginning. This is like flying a jet plane which you do not visual see what's going on outside, but rather you see if you are doing well through dashboard panels. But at least a CEO must learn and know what information is important in order to have a meaningful dashboard. This is getting too long. Any feedback on my opinion is welcome.
If it's not involving building collapses or motor vehicle collisions or bomb blasts or wildfires or other forms of mayhem, and if the decision doesn't involve significant risk of or result in death or serious personal injury, then "terrifying" probably isn't right word.
Bankruptcy is not death. Dead is dead.
Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, Repeat, or however you prefer to think of the decision-making process.
Make your decisions with the best possible considerations and information that you have available, work to get the best and the smartest folks around you and with you, and don't undermine yourself with second-guessing your own decisions.
And if you're going to be involved in any serious forms of mayhem at all regularly, sure, it can get scary, but you train for it, equip for it, and you make the best available decisions and the perform the best triage you can manage. Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, Repeat.
I am not disagreeing with the weight on the CEO and overall it was a thought provoking post. But it only scratched the surface and did not write enough about his own experience (and management of his psychology). Incidentally, those were the 2 parts I found most insightful: 1. "The new customers didn’t save us, but we figured out another way to survive and ultimately succeed. The key to getting to the right outcome was to keep from getting married to either the positive or the dark narrative." 2. "Get it out of your head and onto paper"
The mental game of entrepreneurship is certainly the biggest component.
I wrote down a detailed explanation of my logic. The process of writing that document separated me from my own psychology and enabled me to make the decision swiftly.
Agreed. To the HN readers who type things often in computer, i would suggest to pour out with a pen onto paper next time, this is healer!