My CEO Life

Have you ever wanted to leap across a table and throttle someone?  Well i had that experience yesterday – the desire, not the action.

I was called to a meeting for the launch of a new internal project.  Now i was aware of the project as it is closely tied to a recent acquisition we had made.  However, what i was not prepared for was the statement of the obvious.

Prior to the meeting, documents were distributed – volumes of them.  Now i don’t know about you, but i don’t have time to read every thing that comes across my desk so i tend to ignore long email or send a polite response back asking for a summary.

So at this kick off meeting, i was expecting to be taken through the scope of the project and to have them seek my sign off so that they could get on with it.  No, they decided to waste my time and that of other senior managers on telling us how they are going to run the project.  What a waste of my and other senior management’s time.

The bottom line is that i trust them to run a project (otherwise i would not have appointed them) and what i am interested is in knowing what you are going to do, when it will be delivered, how you are going to keep me in the loop and finally HOW MUCH it will cost!

So we had a clash of cultures – the project management / external company justifying their existence versus the high speed, rapid progress, small company that believes in see forgiveness don’t beg permission.

The way we addressed it is to call the meeting to a premature halt, explain that we all know about project management and then gave them 30 min to prepare a more focused, problem solving meeting that will actually be valuable to the business.

I cant see the point in politely sitting there and then walking out and saying – what was that all about.  Carpe diem – sieze the day!

1. When Trust is Misplaced

   I had one of those days yesterday.  A while ago we employed someone into our customer care center.  He was a good worked.  After a while he came upon hard times and due to a separation from his partner, he...

2. Constraining Employees

   I have a great senior employee who is massively eager, capable and running at a million miles per hour – in generally right direction. The challenge is not motivation, guidance or direction. The challenge is constraining him. Why constrain, i...

3. What Makes a Good CEO?

   Now this is a tricky question as it depends on the business the CEO is running. The CEO of a not for profit will have some different skills versus a CEO of a large corporate versus a CEO of a...

4. Great Customer Service – Going Above and Beyond

   I was recently on a flight with my favourite airline (Emirates). I fly them often and have reached one of their highest frequent flyer levels. However they continue to annoy me as they have me down for a special meal...

5. About the Company I Work For

   OK … i am going to tell you a little about the company so that you have some context. We have been in business for around 10 years and operate in the internet space. We provide a range of services...