My CEO Life

I recently wrote on what makes a great CEO.  Well someone has asked “why do CEO’s fail?”

I think you can look at this on three dimensions - structural, skill, and ego.

Structural

Some CEO’s are running businesses that are doomed from the start.  They are operating in industries that are structurally challenged or have poor economics or have massive competition.  To win in these games requires a CEO to be brilliant and, lets face it, if you are brilliant, you wouldn’t take the job in one of these industries / businesses in the first place.

Bottom line — no matter what you do you are doomed!

Skill

Sometime people are appointed to a CEO role and it is beyond them.  They have been very successful in their functional discipline however when you move them across to running the complete business, they fail because it is just too hard and they don’t have the cross-functional skill sets to either keep the team on track or to add value to all parts of the business.

In these circumstances, they either focus on what they know and let parts of the business wither or they try to add value when they don’t know what they are doing and either lead the business in the wrong direction or lose the faith of their senior management team.

Ego

This is my favourite.  It is all about the CEO who doesnt know what he / she doesnt know.  They are all about themselves, about being the leader of a business and not necessarily acting in the best interests of those around them.  Some become media stars and end up distancing themselves from the employees of the business and are more worried about their personal brand than building the business.  These guys often fall apart when times get tough and they dont really know what to do … see skill above

We have just launched a new site and the tech team has been working 24/7 to make it happen.  With them moving heaven and earth, it would not have occurred so we decided to do something fun and different with the team to reward them for all their efforts.

We decided to ask the team into a room and we decided to give them a day off.  However, to make it a little more exciting for them, we gave each an envelope with a note with a sum of money on it.  They were each told that they had 24 hours to spend the money and once they had reported back on what they wanted to buy, we would transfer the amount to their account.

This had a great effect on the team and they were acting like it was Christmas.  They all went out, identified what they wanted to buy and reported back.  Some booked holidays, some bought new computers (they are techo’s), some bought shares (love ‘em) and some just put it on their home loans.

All in all, they had a fun time and remembered the day fondly.  So much better than just more $ in their accounts.

The amounts given where between $1000 and $5000.

Well the business i run is spread across multiple countries and multiple time zones. We have offices in some locations and people working from the trunk of their car in others. How do i keep in touch with what is happening?

I have 7 essential tools - messenger, skype, outlook, VAIO (10.1 inch screen), wireless lans at home and work, an XDA II Mini (& Treo) and iPod.

1. Messenger is an essential part of the organisation’s culture. We encourage all employees to have a messenger account and encourage everyone to share their messenger account details with other employees. At any point in time i can see who is online, ping them a quick question and get quick decisions. We also use the messenger conferencing function to get people around the world to quickly solve a problem.
2. Skype is also critical. It has cut our phone bills enormously and allows us to conference call around the world. I can have a 60 min call with the UK and at no cost. We use Skype to call customers and other contacts in other countries for next to no cost. Who would want to be a telco? www.skype.com
3. Outlook - ok this is not rocket science but email is critical to our future success. What is interesting is the culture around email usage. While some in the business copy too many people, we tend to work on the approach that short and sharp emails are acceptable. We prefer candor and informality rather than long emails. I also work on the theory that if i am copied rather than the direct recipient - i can delete it - and that if it is more than a screen in length - i will not read it - and finally - if it is critical - they will call or messenge me!
4. My VAIO is my life blood. It is as small as possible and has everything i need in it. Critical is wireless lan so that i can hook in everywhere. I love to pinch band width from open wireless nodes and when flying around the world, Boeing Connexions is critical.
5. I have a wireless lan at my 2 homes (so i just open and surf) and also at the office. This means i am always connected and always able to get on line. (DSL is taken as a given!) I also have a wireless lan SD Mini card so i can search from my XDA II Mini.
6. My XDA II Mini is critical. It gives me great email browsing, mobile phone calling globally and some games to pass the time
7. Finally, iPod - why? You have to have some down time plus i subscribe to some cool podcasts. I listen to my favourite shows on the run. I actually have 2 - a nano and a video ipod. The video ipod is loaded with ripped TV shows and series to that i can relax and watch what i want on long haul flights.

I travel a lot for my roll as we continue to build out the business into new markets.  As such i get to travel on many and varied airlines and most of the time long haul.   So i thought i would start a new section of the site about what i really think about certain airlines and give you the real inside scoop.

My first victim is Emirates.

For those of you who dont know them, they are based out of Dubai in the Middle East and are one of the most progressive airlines (and countries). I have flown Emirates a few times and it is usually long haul and between Europe and Australia and Asia.

The Good

• Excellent service
• Great food
• Friendly cabin staff with great language skill - the are from around the world
• Dubai airport is wonderful
• The inflight entertainment system is second to none - hundreds of choices

The Bad

• The food services as SO SLOW - so if you want to work, you just have to be patient
• The seats are not the most modern and sleeping on them is really hard!
• Dont really have an alliance for frequent flyers - i am meant to be getting united points but they are yet to come through

The Ugly

• Not all planes are modern so if you are unlucky (usually between Middle East and locations in Europe) — the planes suck!
• On my last flight, the great entertainment system didnt work and there was nothing they could do about it — imagine 14 hours and no TV
• Check your flights - recently flew from Dubai to Rome but had to stop in Milan on the way - not fun!

Would be great to hear your travel stories