At C-Level #10: Three Successful Transformations, Same Model

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Mike Sayre is a highly experienced and successful software, e-commerce, and manufacturing services CEO, COO, CFO, and Board Director. He is an Executive Leadership Development Coach at the Innovative Leadership Institute, a trusted partner inspiring and enabling perpetual innovation, evolution, and growth in leaders and their businesses. Mike was featured in Maureen Metcalf’s May 2017 Innovative Leaders Driving Thriving Organizations interview on VoiceAmerica entitled “7 Characteristics of Leadership 2020 In Practice: A CEO Story.”

Technology, economics, geopolitics, generational thought processes, your customer’s needs and your competitors’ products and services are all evolving faster than ever:

  • Do you see foundational changes your organization needs to make to ensure the constant innovation and evolution required to keep up?
  • How sustainable is your company with its current business model and offerings? As importantly, how sustainable is its growth?
  • How can you lead, be a major driver, or at least participate and not get run over in a transformational change process?

The “At C-Level” blog series I write is designed to help you think through how you can create the leadership and organizational transformation capacity to ensure your company is positioned to thrive over the long term and well into the future.

In At C-Level #1–8, I wrote about one specific transformation I led and how my leadership skills were tested and developed in my first role as CEO.

In C-Level #10–18, I write about three of the most successful transformations I’ve had the opportunity to lead in my career so far, using a seven-step transformation model that I now know is closely aligned with the Metcalf & Associate’s Innovative Leadership Transformation Model below.

 

This #10 blog will briefly describe the transformations we’ll study and the basic seven-step process successfully employed in all three transformations chronicled below.

The three transformations were implemented in different size companies, in different industries, with vastly different challenges, and were started and led from various roles within these different organizations.

Summaries of the three transformations are as follows:

  • Large Manufacturing Company. Early in my career as a corporate financial analyst, then as a plant controller and the corporate controller in a Fortune 1000 publicly-held heavy manufacturing company, I started and led the transformation of basic accounting and financial reporting controllers into financial business partners for the leadership teams in business units across the corporation.
  • Mid-Size Electronics Manufacturing Services Company. In a $75M publicly-held electronics manufacturing services company, I led a cultural, operational, and financial transformation, and an international expansion as that company’s CEO.
  • Global Internet Payments Company. As a consultant and then the company’s President & COO, I led a cultural, operational, and financial transformation that resulted in a realized increase in the value of a privately-held $20M+ global internet payments processing company of 3X over a two-year period.

You may be asking yourself what lessons one can learn from these very different companies and situations. Actually – a lot. I share much of what I learned as we go along and will synthesize all the lessons learned at the end, but here is the first take away: Change is never going to stop happening. In fact, it is speeding up. Embrace that! Significant changes in the company, the company’s business environment and/or growth over time will eventually necessitate wholesale changes to move the organization forward. I’ve seen that happen over and over in these three companies as well as many others, and someone needs to step up and lead those transformational changes…why not you?

Here’s a little more on the seven-step transformation process I’ve used and some questions we recommend you answer for your company as you read the upcoming series:

1 – Create a Vision & Sense of Urgency: A major transformation must have a compelling vision that everyone wants/needs to be a part of. That alone creates a sense of urgency if there is not a crisis already. If there is already a crisis, the vision must provide a future that will keep everyone engaged to survive it and thrive thereafter (it’s called “hope”). Do you have a vision for your company that will drive your top change or transformation priorities and processes?

2 – Build Your Team: If it’s a major transformation, you won’t be able to lead it yourself. You need a team of subject matter experts and leaders who buy into the vision and will work with you to make it happen. Jim Collins calls it “getting the right people in the right seats on the bus” in his book, Good to Great. This is a thoughtful process. Do you know which people you need to implement your key change initiatives? Hint: They may be different than the people you rely on to run your current business. A recommendation: Don’t be too quick to dump the people who have the most history with the company thinking they won’t want or aren’t able to change.

3 – Analyze Situation & Strengths: Again, be thoughtful and engage and listen to your team. The fastest way to get between two points is a straight line. The fewer detours you take trying out new products, services, people, or processes that do not serve you well, the faster your progress will be. Focus on the game changers with your vision in mind. Have you evaluated your current strengths and weaknesses in the context of the changes you are trying to make?

4 – Plan Journey: Include metrics, milestones, and decision points, but also discuss and plan how you may have to deviate from the plan when your initial assumptions and/or execution don’t play out. Always keep the vision in sight! You may also want to experiment to prove out your concepts on small projects before making significant investments in changes. How will you go about planning your change?

5 – Communicate: Start with the vision and the plan. Regular and consistent communication around the vision, progress against the plan, what’s working or not, needed plan deviations, metrics, and milestone celebrations cannot be overdone—even when you feel you are talking about them way too much, you are not. Do you have a structured communication plan that looks at the information each stakeholder group needs and when they need it?

6 – Implementation and Measurement: See steps 4 and 5. These steps are not really sequential in nature. There is lots of overlap, parallel execution, and even order changing depending on how the transformation needs to be done and is progressing. The seven-step process is only a model! Do you have a process to track implementation progress, barriers and risks and correct course?

7 – Embed the Transformation: Think sustainability…a strong vision, great people, and an enduring culture are required to do this. It is not easy, and persistence and patience are required. How will you embed the changes you are making in each of your processes, training materials, performance management processes, hiring criteria, and any other element of your culture and structure that will make the change stick? Or will it just go back to status quo after some short period of time, especially after you and the organization have made such a significant investment?

In At C-Level #11–17, we’ll look more deeply at each step in the process and analyze how that step was implemented in the three different organizations I worked in. We’ll explore what worked well, what didn’t, how long that step took and, in some cases, why certain steps were not done in order, or were even skipped.

In At C-Level 18, we’ll look at the common themes that emerged from these transformations, then summarize and wrap up this part of the series. I’ll be very candid with my assessments of those transformations and, hopefully, you’ll pick up some ideas that will help you transform your own organization!

Thanks for following the series! Please look for At C-Level blogs #11-18 over the next several weeks!

To become a more innovative leader, you can begin by taking our free leadership assessments and then enrolling in our online leadership development program.

Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible,  iHeartRADIO, and NPR One.  Stay up-to-date on new shows airing by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.

At C-Level #9: Evolving Leadership for an Evolving World

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Mike Sayre is a highly experienced and successful software, e-commerce, and manufacturing services CEO, COO, CFO, and Board Director. He is an Executive Leadership Development Coach at the Innovative Leadership Institute, a trusted partner inspiring and enabling perpetual innovation, evolution, and growth in leaders and their businesses. Mike was featured in Maureen Metcalf’s May 2017 Innovative Leaders Driving Thriving Organizations interview on VoiceAmerica entitled “7 Characteristics of Leadership 2020 In Practice: A CEO Story.”

Waves of change in technology are advancing at an exponential rate—20,000 times more than in the last century according to Google CTO and futurist Ray Kurzweil. So are waves of change in society, global and local economics, as well geopolitics. These incredible rates of ongoing change are driving…

  • the evolution of your customers’ needs and your competitors’ offerings faster than ever,
  • the obsolescence of technologies your offerings depend on today,
  • your most capable employees’ desires to leverage new technologies to innovate, grow, and evolve themselves, and
  • a vastly accelerated pace of change in your business.

Are you evolving the way you and your team lead to continue to ride these waves of change? If not, you may be swept beneath them.

Over the course of human history, there have been six major shifts in societal/cultural norms (eras) with corresponding leadership development and advancement. The first four were driven over tens of thousands of years by increasing populations, the continued need to feed and protect growing population centers, and a primal power base:

  • ARCHAIC: nomadic clans hunting and foraging for food
  • TRIBAL: the formation of tribes and villages and the developments of horticulture and shepherding
  • WARRIOR: the building of city-state empires using serf or slave labor to establish early agricultural practices
  • TRADITIONAL: the growth of city-state empires to wide-spread kingdoms and monarchies battling over turf and power

Next came the MODERN Industrial Scientific era where leadership spent more time and energy on perfecting tasks and processes (think assembly lines) to support mass production and distribution of traditional products, but also products based on new technologies, like automobiles, mostly in developing nation-states with access to the required resources. Commercial success translated into new power bases. The Modern era developed over a period of approximately two-hundred years and many people and organizations are still functioning at this level.

Then came the POST-MODERN era where leadership became much more introspective, thoughtful, and systems oriented, where the information age and the internet have spanned virtual transnational networks. This era has really only developed over the last 20-30 years with the advent of the internet.

Note that the first four eras developed over tens of thousands of years and that some parts of the third-world still may be functioning at some combination of the Tribal, Warrior and Traditional eras. They co-exist in close proximity to parts of the world where the Modern and Post-Modern eras developed over just the last couple of hundred years. Hence, it is reasonable to assume that the incredible rate of increasing technological advancement over time so far will only continue to increase exponentially going forward, and Kurzweil’s predictions are not so far-fetched as they may seem! It has become more and more difficult for leaders and organizations to keep up.

So now, we are beginning to experience the seventh societal/cultural/leadership shift into what we call the INTEGRAL era. In this era, technological change, economic change and geopolitical change outpace the abilities of most Modern and Post-Modern leaders who think in terms of tasks, processes, and systems. Integral era leadership must consider the constant evolution of entire ecosystems in which we operate, and evolve ahead of the curve—or at least with the curve—to just survive, let alone thrive.

When today’s foremost leadership experts were doing research for the book Leadership 2050, they looked at five recent global studies on organizational leadership needs for the future. All five studies generally concluded that there are not enough leaders in our current leadership pipeline that have the higher-ordered skills and capacities to meet the complexity of today’s challenges, not to mention those needed for 2050.

What are those higher-ordered skills?

  1. Being professionally humble – Astute leaders care more about doing the right thing than being right. Their focus is on the mission and they consistently give credit to their team and others when they succeed.
  2. Having an unwavering commitment to right action – A thoughtful leader consistently makes decisions based on what action will most effectively advance the organization’s mission, even if doing it is not the easiest path.
  3. Being a 360-degree thinker – A prudent leader consistently considers the industry, environment and trends driving future success, in addition to the organizations’ strategies, capabilities, and, most obvious, environmental factors.
  4. Being intellectually versatile – Creative leaders draw from a broad set of interests and involvement in activities outside their organization. Those activities also give them opportunities to recharge.
  5. Being highly authentic and reflective – Self-aware leaders who possess a strong sense of mission and are transparently guided by a set of consistently adhered-to principles build trust that promotes an environment of high performance.
  6. Inspire followership – Leaders strong in the previous competencies, with a sense of humor and mild self-deprecation, who are warm and empathetic, inspire a followership that appreciates the tough conversations required to maintain ever-higher performance and achievement, and are continually inspired to do more.
  7. Being innately collaborative – Exceptional leaders value input from experts and those impacted by key decisions, and promote the offering of differing points of view, knowing that multiple perspectives result in better outcomes, more support, and stronger execution.

How can you develop these higher-ordered skills?

These competencies generally take years to develop and are gained through both unplanned and planned life and career experiences.

Nick Petrie from the Center of Creative Leadership says what he calls “vertical ego-maturity development” is helping leaders move from one level of ego-maturity to the next (becoming less self-centered) to match leadership style with the demands of society. A similar leadership developmental process occurred to move between each of the societal levels referenced above, with the specifics varying according to life conditions. This transformation process occurs through:

  • Heat Experiences where a leader faces a complex situation that disrupts and disorients a habitual way of thinking. Through this experience there is a recognition that the current way of making sense of the world is inadequate. The leader opens up to different perspectives and starts searching for new and better ways to make sense of the situation.
  • Colliding Perspectives where a leader is exposed to people with different world views, opinions, backgrounds, and training that challenges existing mental models and increases the number of perspectives through which the world is viewed.
  • Elevated Sense-making where a leader uses a coach, or a self-developed process, to help integrate and make sense of these perspectives and experiences from more elevated stages of development. A larger more advanced worldview emerges and, with time, stablizie.

At Innovative Leadership Institute, we work with our clients to create perpetual innovation, evolution, and growth in their leadership and business by providing

  • Individual or group Innovative Leadership training
  • Team/organization innovative culture development
  • Organizational transformation engagement, and
  • Ongoing consulting, coaching and/or follow-up sessions to ensure:
  • Growth in perspectives when unplanned heat experiences or colliding perspectives “barge in,”
  • Development of elevated sense-making with new perspectives, and
  • Sustainability of developmental goal achievement and/or transformation.

For additional tools, we recommend taking leadership assessments, using the Innovative Leadership Fieldbook and Innovative Leaders Guide to Transforming Organizations, and adding coaching to our online innovative leadership program. We also offer several workshops to help you build these skills. You can download the first three chapters of the Innovative Leadership Workbook for Emerging Leaders and Managers for free.

Thanks for following us! Please look for more upcoming blogs and blog series at “C” level from Mike.

At C-Level #8: Executive Level Strategy Setting and Execution

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C Level 8This blog is a companion to the interview with Mike Sayre and Dr. Dale Meyerrose on VoiceAmerica “Innovative Leaders Driving Thriving Organizations” on February 7, 2017, focusing on the complex reality of leading organizational change.

At C-Level #8 is the eighth blog of an eight-part series following a first time CEO’s educational journey in a very challenging business environment, and exploring global concepts in leadership theory and practice.  

At the end of each blog are reflection questions for readers to consider as they navigate their own leadership journey.

This guest post by Mike Sayre — experienced software, e-commerce and manufacturing services CEO, COO, CFO and Board Director—is based on his first-hand experiences as a fledging CEO. Its intent is to provide additional insight or ideas to those in, close to, aspiring to, or trying to understand the top leadership role in any organization.

Prior to my first time role as CEO, I had input into company strategy from other functional leadership roles, but it was now my responsibility to lead strategy development with our team and our board, and then lead its execution as well. I found this easily to be one of the most complex and difficult responsibilities of being a CEO, because it includes figuring it out, getting buy-in, leading its execution, keeping buy-in, and continually evaluating whether it’s going to work or not – and, if not, jumping back to the figuring it out stage.

When I accepted my first CEO job, we had just grown revenue about 4x over a three to four year period while I was the CFO. However, profitability growth had been eluding us. Deep analysis (figuring it out) proved that we had won some large programs on pricing that we could just not make profitable. The idea was that if we could just get in the door and prove ourselves we could get higher value and more profitable work. Ever hear that before? We could not execute fast enough on getting that higher margin business when the economy started sliding downward.

Our short term strategy was either to make unprofitable business profitable or shed it (by raising prices). We would also need to make sure our cost structure was optimized with the right size and composition of workforce for the business we were able to keep, ensuring key talent stayed to help us grow the company again for our longer term strategy. Our longer term strategy was to leverage our extensive engineering and manufacturing capabilities to move into building more complex and higher margin products that were undeniably more valuable to our customers than the lower margin commodity work we were currently doing for them. This long term strategy made it much less desirable for them to switch to another supplier. Overall, we were looking at less revenue for some period of time, but more profitability.

Early in execution it all seemed to be working: less revenue, higher margins and some success in moving into a new market for us. It was difficult work saying “no” to big customers, having to right-size the business by laying off good people and keeping everyone else on board with the longer term strategy in mind, and moving into a new market – the latter of which can take quite some time. Following the Golden Rule and constantly communicating to all of our stakeholders was paramount to keeping everyone on board.

So, here is a substantial lesson I learned through all this that I would like to share with you. I am sure you’ve heard it before, but I assure you it is so true, and I hope you will take it to heart:

When you change strategies, introduce new products, try to make any kind of significant change, you have a very small window of opportunity to make it work, and you almost never know how small that window really is – so time is absolutely of the essence. You do not have the time you think you have!

So, as it was, with the economy accelerating in its deep dive, we were running out of time. The orders for the commodity-type manufacturing services we provided were quickly dwindling and we were laying off people almost every quarter to “right-size” the company for that declining part of the business. Our customers kept lowering their quarterly forecasts. They could not tell us, and we could not see, when their forecast reductions would subside and their higher demand would return. We were no longer profitable.

After a couple of rounds of layoffs and continued uncertainty, I decided we needed to abandon our move to more highly engineered, valued and margin products, get the company to a sustainable profit level in its other core business, and wait it out for likely two to three years.

So we engineered a layoff that would do just that, and I included myself in it. I knew this plan would quickly put the company back in a profitable position. I also knew the founder and COO could maintain that level of profitability until the economy came back. The founder had run the business for about 10 years before I joined the company. With that level of profitability, the company could either invest for more growth in better economic times, or sell because of its strategic niche business and profitable operations. And that is what happened. Over the next two years, the company maintained its profitability as planned and was sold to a global player in the industry that needed the company’s capabilities, some of its key accounts, and its well run operations and profitable business.

Hindsight being 20/20, and to my earlier point about not knowing how small that window of opportunity will be, I wish we could’ve moved faster on the long term strategic plan. We had the talent and capabilities in place, and we were making good progress. We just ran out of time and that responsibility was mine.

I’ll end this At C-Level series with the first tenet of Jim Collin’s Good to Great that I listed in the first installment, At C-Level #1:

  • Success is not about the leader as a person, but about the success of the company.

The company was very successful during my time there, especially given all of the challenges we had to deal with. And based on the company’s success, built upon many other successes contributed by many other people purposefully led by our leadership team, even with my own initiated exit from the company, I count my first CEO role as a success.

You may be saying, “My situation is different and there is no way I would ever leave my CEO job, or any other C-Level job for that matter!” So what if it was not your choice?

Reflection questions:

  • Do you have a succession plan in place? If unfortunate circumstances caused you to leave your leadership position, how would the leadership legacy you leave behind continue to serve all of your stakeholders – your shareholders/owners, employees, customers, suppliers and/or communities in which you live?
  • Do you currently have key strategic initiatives going? Do you have metrics in place to know when they are successful? How much time do you think you have to complete your implementation of these initiatives? Could an economic downturn, loss of a customer or anything else significantly derail your initiatives? I’ll ask again: How much time do you think you really have to complete your initiatives? Is there anything you could speed up, do simultaneously, or put more resources on to move those initiatives ahead more quickly?

If your company is facing significant strategic, leadership, succession planning, financial and/or operational challenges, please contact Metcalf & Associates or me to assist in developing and executing your way forward through those challenges and beyond with our executive advisory and leadership development services.

Thanks for following us! Please look for more upcoming blogs and blog series at the “C” level from Mike.

To become a more innovative leader, you can begin by taking our free leadership assessments and then enrolling in our online leadership development program.

Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible,  iHeartRADIO, and NPR One.  Stay up-to-date on new shows airing by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.

About the Author

Mike Sayre, executive advisor and organizational transformation practice lead, has been a successful CEO, COO, CFO and board director for multiple organizations in technology (cybersecurity, ecommerce payments processing and engineered computer products) and manufacturing (electronics and steel products). He shares his expertise with client boards and C-Level leaders, and advises, designs, plans, and oversees the implementation of successful strategies for turnarounds, growth, profitability and sustainability.

Mike brings 25+ years of organizational and business leadership and hands-on implementation experience to his clients.  His teams have achieved significant increases in growth, profitability and valuation, as well as shareholder, customer, supplier and employee engagement and satisfaction.

At C-Level #7: Unprofitable operations – underutilized capacity, underperforming operations, logistical challenges

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c-level 7At C-Level #7 is the seventh blog of an eight-part series following a first time CEO’s educational journey in a very challenging business environment, and exploring global concepts in leadership theory and practice.

At the end of each blog are reflection questions for readers to consider as they navigate their own leadership journey. 

This guest post by Mike Sayre — experienced software, e-commerce and manufacturing services CEO, COO, CFO and Board Director—is based on his first-hand experiences as a fledging CEO. Its intent is to provide additional insight or ideas to those in, close to, aspiring to, or trying to understand the top leadership role in any organization. Mike was also featured in the October 4, 2016 Innovative Leaders Driving Thriving Organizations interview with Maureen Metcalf on VoiceAmerica focusing on the importance of leader trustworthiness in driving organizational change.

As a first-time CEO with a couple of years leading and starting up new manufacturing and distribution operations in an operations leadership role, I was still not totally prepared for operational challenges we faced as I took on this role.

  • Prior to my new role as CEO, we had acquired a competitor across the country with the same large customer/small margin challenges that we had. However, the competitor’s leadership had not been willing to face those brutal facts and was about to close its doors when we acquired it. The primary reasons for the acquisition were increased sales, engineering capability, overhead reduction and profitability. Nonetheless, the circumstances and late timing had not given us enough time to sort that out and benefits from the acquisition had not yet been realized.
  • Both of our operations had significant inventory and production control, as well as quality and delivery, challenges – and neither operation was a very impressive place to walk a potential new customer through. Those challenges had also driven at least one of our largest customers to demand daily order status calls so they could pressure our customer service staff to improve shipping performance (our staff referred to them as “the daily beatings”), and, thus, we were about to lose one of our best program managers.
  • Our bid opportunities for additional work for our core service business were dwindling because we were doing work for global electronics manufacturers who began requiring operations in Europe and Asia to reduce transit time and logistics costs, and we only had a presence in the U.S. We had to expand globally.

Although I did not know all the theories I’m now writing about, I believe that I enabled our turnaround success on some key tenets of those theories that I now better understand. I am sharing them with you in this blog series because it has been easier to replicate my success since I understood the principles on which that success was based. And I hope this may be the same for you. Some of the principals:

  • The tenets from Jim Collin’s book, Good to Great, referenced in At C-Level #1, the first blog of this series:
    • The right people in the right seats on the bus make all the difference;
    • Find the truth and act on it by facing the brutal facts of reality while maintaining an unwavering faith that you will succeed; and
    • Greatness comes from sustained commitment to disciplined people, disciplined thinking, and disciplined action that creates breakthrough momentum.
  • Additionally, I relied heavily on the Conscious Capitalism concepts introduced in At C-Level #3 that take into consideration all of the key stakeholders in making important decisions – in particular, the employee stakeholders in this installment of the series.
  • Remember the Strategist Competency model from At C-Level #4. It said that Strategists are unstoppable and unflappable when on a mission. This one was foundational for me in every difficult situation we encountered. I won’t say it was easy. While personally feeling the pain of making all these changes, I tried to make sure we were doing the “right thing,” and with that in mind, I mustered the courage to stay the difficult path that we, as a leadership team, had set.

Here’s how we approached those challenges. Our changes focused on people, process, and investment.

  • We faced the brutal facts, closed the acquired operation across the country and moved the work to our existing local operations, cutting our total combined expenses by more than 7 percent. Treating the people who were being laid off in the acquired operation as we would like to be treated (the Golden Rule) gave us three months of solid production and work transfer help from the people being laid off. They were awesome.
  • I called the customer and stopped the “daily beating” calls. With a Golden Rule philosophy, we could not allow someone to berate our people like that and I told that to the person who was making the calls. He was very upset and threatened to come into our operation from his European location to monitor his orders and manage our people. I told him he would get no further than the lobby. The news of our conversation spread quickly and had a tremendous impact on associate morale and engagement. Having said all that, we knew that his expectations were not unreasonable and we could not continue to miss our shipment commitments to our customers. So, I promised him a daily email with the status of any orders that were not on track to meet our commitment, and what we were doing to get them back on track. The customer could call us with any specific questions or challenges of course. That call and process change had three major effects on our organization:
    • It affirmed to our associates that I meant what I said about following the Golden Rule, showed them that I cared about them, and they stepped up. It took awhile to correct the shipping problem.
    • Although the customer’s shipments did see some early improvement, it took awhile to correct the shipping problems, but there were no more “daily beatings.” Because the e-mail I promised was sent out daily without fail, the customer always knew what was going on with their shipments and our team was more committed than ever to solve our shipping challenges.
    • It also saved us a lot of time…there were several people in those meetings and it only took one person to do the email! The rest could now work on the root issues of our shipping challenges.
  • As I wrote in the last installment of this series, At C-Level #6, we raised capital, bought an operation in Europe and started a new one with a partner in Asia.
  • We implemented Lean Manufacturing at all three of our operations that made our associates more excited about what we were doing and more productive, in addition to making our operations better organized and better run for existing and potential customer business and production audits.
  • We also used some of the capital we raised for our first Agile development process to build an inventory tracking system that was used at all three operations and gave our global customers one place to track all their products within our company.

It took a couple of years of intensely hard work with the team to reorganize and turnaround our operations. It also took the hiring of very talented and experienced operations and IT leaders to help implement the Lean Manufacturing and Agile methodologies that I wanted to help drive the turnaround process. The large customer that was holding the “daily beatings” was the same customer (not the same person) that later confirmed to me that we were indeed accomplishing our vision of being the best in the business (the world) at what we do.

There is one more concept in play here that was essential to our successes: the resulting shift to a much higher level of “harmonic vibrancy.” The Institute for Strategic Clarity defines harmonic vibrancy as the overall quality of life people experience in their relationships with themselves, each other, and the various communities or collectives in which they participate. When harmonic vibrancy is high, they typically experience gratitude, joy, enthusiasm, creative capacities, trust, and social solidarity; when it is low, ingratitude, anxiety, apathy, mistrust, and anti-social competitiveness. The changes we made significantly raised the level of harmonic vibrancy in our company. Ironically, you can grow a business without it, but sustaining success is much more likely with a vibrant organization than one that operates by fear and manipulation.

Reflection questions:

  • What are the two to three major strategic operations challenges in your business today? What are some of the brutal facts?
  • Are you acting on them? How?
  • In your current situation, on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest, how would you rate the harmonic vibrancy in your organization or company? More importantly, how do you think your associates would rate it?
  • How might you and/or your leadership team improve it?

If you identify with the leadership models I’ve been writing about in these blogs and need

  • Leadership assessments (including a harmonic vibrancy assessment) and development for you and/or your team based on these models, or
  • Executive advisory services on how to implement strategic, financial, operational and/or cultural transformations to turnaround and/or grow your company, please contact Metcalf & Associates or me for further information on our services.

In At C-Level #8, Mike wraps up this blog series about his experiences being a first-time CEO responsible for overall company strategy and execution during a steep economic downturn affecting the business.

To become a more innovative leader, you can begin by taking our free leadership assessments and then enrolling in our online leadership development program.

Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible,  iHeartRADIO, and NPR One.  Stay up-to-date on new shows airing by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.

About the Author

Mike Sayre, executive advisor and organizational transformation practice lead, has been a successful CEO, COO, CFO and board director for multiple organizations in technology (cybersecurity, ecommerce payments processing and engineered computer products) and manufacturing (electronics and steel products). He shares his expertise with client boards and C-Level leaders, and advises, designs, plans, and oversees the implementation of successful strategies for turnarounds, growth, profitability and sustainability.

Mike brings 25+ years of organizational and business leadership and hands-on implementation experience to his clients.  His teams have achieved significant increases in growth, profitability and valuation, as well as shareholder, customer, supplier and employee engagement and satisfaction.

At C-Level #6: Unprofitable domestic sales, unsuccessful international sales, dwindling opportunities and turning lemons into lemonade

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C Suite 6 Mike HardyAt C-Level #6 is the sixth blog of an eight-part series following a first time CEO’s educational journey in a very challenging business environment, and exploring global concepts in leadership theory and practice.

At the end of each blog are reflection questions for readers to consider as they navigate their own leadership journey.

This guest post by Mike Sayre — experienced software, e-commerce and manufacturing services CEO, COO, CFO and Board Director—is based on his first-hand experiences as a fledging CEO. Its intent is to provide additional insight or ideas to those in, close to, aspiring to, or trying to understand the top leadership role in any organization. Mike was also featured in the October 4, 2016 Innovative Leaders Driving Thriving Organizations interview with Maureen Metcalf on VoiceAmerica focusing on the importance of leader trustworthiness in driving organizational change.

At the time I took on my first CEO role, I hadn’t previously had responsibility for sales. Looking back with the experience I have now, I think we were facing some fairly daunting sales challenges, even for very experienced CEOs:

  • Our board and shareholders had demanded growth in sales – and we had increased sales over 400 percent – but had little increased profitability to show for it. We were winning large volume programs with little to no gross profit margin. It was largely domestic commodity service work, that we had to build a large and fairly expensive group of people and infrastructure to support.
  • Our bid opportunities for additional work for our core service business were dwindling because we were doing work for global electronics manufacturers who began requiring operations in both Europe and Asia, while we only had a presence in the U.S.
  • We had started an international sales initiative in Europe and Asia that we had hoped would help, but it was expensive, needed much more time to develop, and we weren’t sure that the margins would be any better (likely not with the Asian cost of labor being so much lower at the time).
  • We had a group of smart salespeople. However, they had come in under a sales leader who left the company simultaneous to my becoming CEO. They had come in under a different set of rules, and now we were changing them. And that does not happen overnight. They were unhappy, our transition was taking too long for them and many left the company before we stabilized.

Remember these tenets from Jim Collin’s Good to Great book written about in At C-Level #1 of this series?

  • The right people in the right seats on the bus make all the difference;
  • Find the truth and act on it by facing the brutal facts of reality while maintaining an unwavering faith that you will succeed; and
  • Greatness comes from sustained commitment to disciplined people, disciplined thinking, and disciplined action that creates breakthrough momentum.

Remember the Strategist Competency model from At C-Level #4? It said that Strategists are unstoppable and unflappable when on a mission.

My point here is that these were the qualities we needed during this challenging time. We were facing urgent issues on several fronts: we needed to identify the “right” people and get them in the right seats on the bus; address the brutal facts about our business strategy that was generating lower profit margins; address the lack of business process in qualifying “good” business for us; and I needed to have the courage to make some tough calls and stick to them when I met resistance. I’ve been told that my reactions were instinctively that of Level 5 and Strategist leaders, but not because I knew what those were and thought that I should emulate them. Rather, it seemed to me to be what we needed at the time, so I just moved in that direction, with the benefit of additional strong leadership and support from the rest of the team.

Here’s how we made lemonade out of the lemons we were handed with these challenges.

  • We did detailed cost analyses of large customer programs we believed might not be profitable as priced. We faced the brutal facts, took action and became a smaller revenue and higher gross margin company, with more discipline around our pricing and analysis of the business we committed to before we committed to it. That allowed us to weather a major economic downturn.
  • We stopped trying to sell internationally because there was plenty of global business that we could win right here in the U.S., if we had operations in Europe and Asia. However, we raised some capital and used relationships that were developed through our sales efforts in both areas to identify and work with partners. Those partners helped us acquire a small operation in Europe and start up an operation with a partner in Asia. Those two additional operations opened up new bidding opportunities for us and we grew annual sales 25 percent in the core part of our business in less than two years.
  • The salespeople who left had been selling business we were consciously now walking away from. They voluntarily helped us cut our sales cost, allowing us to rebuild a sales organization that could sell the new business that we wanted to target.
  • And, we were hit with a huge downturn in the economy that easily could’ve taken us under had we not made all of those changes in our business as early as we did. Unfortunately, we did need to make more cuts in our staffing levels to do that, but utilizing the Golden Rule (referred to in At C-Level #5) in doing so kept a lot of great people in the company that survived – a company that was eventually sold to a global giant in the industry.

Frankly, so far in my career, I have only seen a couple of leaders who exhibited many of these traits I am writing about. Maybe only one or two in CEO roles. So if you see these traits or even inklings of them in your own personal leadership style, I encourage you not to abandon them – instead nurture them! It’s easier to lead people in a style that fits you.

In their book Leadership 2050, Susan Cannon, Michael Morrow-Fox, and Maureen Metcalf, make a compelling case that these are actually the leadership models it will take for us to be successful in the future – relentlessly competitive, collaborative and caring, with a focus on the success of the company, not the leader. Business and leadership is evolving and we need more of these types of leaders to encourage and lead the innovation required for us to increase and maintain our strong competitive status in the world.

Reflection questions:

  • What are the two to three major strategic sales and/or marketing challenges in your business today? What are some of the brutal facts?
  • How is that information shared with your leadership team? Is it?
  • Does your team know the company mission and vision, what the company’s stakeholders want, and do you have a process for coming to terms with those brutal facts with the best collaborative solutions the team can come up with (understanding that you still have and reserve the right to override)?

If you identify with the leadership models I’ve been writing about in these blogs and need either

  • Leadership assessments and development for you and/or your team based on these models, or
  • Executive advisory services on how to implement strategic, financial, operational and/or cultural transformations in order to turnaround and/or grow your company, please contact Metcalf & Associates or me for further information on our services.

In At C-Level #7, Mike writes about operational improvement through consolidations, expansions, agile software development and lean manufacturing.

To become a more innovative leader, you can begin by taking our free leadership assessments and then enrolling in our online leadership development program.

Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible,  iHeartRADIO, and NPR One.  Stay up-to-date on new shows airing by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.

About the Author

Mike Sayre, executive advisor and organizational transformation practice lead, has been a successful CEO, COO, CFO and board director for multiple organizations in technology (cybersecurity, ecommerce payments processing and engineered computer products) and manufacturing (electronics and steel products). He shares his expertise with client boards and C-Level leaders, and advises, designs, plans, and oversees the implementation of successful strategies for turnarounds, growth, profitability and sustainability.

Mike brings 25+ years of organizational and business leadership and hands-on implementation experience to his clients.  His teams have achieved significant increases in growth, profitability and valuation, as well as shareholder, customer, supplier and employee engagement and satisfaction.

At C-Level #5: The power of a few stated operating guidelines

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C Level

At C-Level #5 is the fifth blog of an eight-part series following a first time CEO’s educational journey in a very challenging business environment, and exploring global concepts in leadership theory and practice.  

At the end of each blog are reflection questions for readers to consider as they navigate their own leadership journey.

This guest post by Mike Sayre — experienced software, e-commerce and manufacturing services CEO, COO, CFO and Board Director—is based on his first-hand experiences as a fledging CEO. Its intent is to provide additional insight or ideas to those in, close to, aspiring to, or trying to understand the top leadership role in any organization. Mike was also featured in the October 4, 2016 Innovative Leaders Driving Thriving Organizations interview with Maureen Metcalf on VoiceAmerica focusing on the importance of leader trustworthiness in driving organizational change. .

As you know from my previous At C-Level posts, as a first time CEO of a manufacturing services company that was lacking in leadership and focus, I created a leadership tool in the form of a “philosophy card” containing a company mission, vision and operating guidelines that aligned with my own personal mission, vision, and operating philosophies.

An operating philosophy like the “Golden Rule,” which says you should treat others as you would like them to treat you, has always been simple enough. Then came the “Platinum Rule,” which says you should treat others as they would like to be treated. Both can cover a lot of ground depending on how literally you take them. I prefer to give people some credit for understanding these general concepts and believe either is a good place to start. But, in addition, I also think giving a few more specific guidelines (but not too prescriptive) helps round out what you mean by stating your operating philosophy is based on the Golden, or Platinum, Rule.
Here are the operating guidelines we decided to put on “the card” as our mission and vision:

guidingphilosophyclevel5

There are many more you can probably think of that you might put on this card. The truth is, just as I wrote about mission and vision in At C-Level #4, you need to do what best serves the company’s and your purpose and circumstances. And I’d add that your guidelines need to be broad enough to cover a lot of ground, but narrow enough that you do not have to worry too much about others’ potential misinterpretations.

In selecting these operating guidelines, our purpose was to turn around a somewhat ego-centric culture where respect, direction and transparency were lacking, and ambiguity and mistrust were the norm, all negatively affecting our overall performance. To be fair, there are many leadership styles used to “successfully” run and grow companies, depending on your definition of “success,” and this culture had evolved in the company over a couple of years of high revenue growth. This culture was just not consistent with my leadership style, and it’s revenue growth based strategies were not growing value for it’s stakeholders.

Here are some examples of how these operating guidelines helped us change our culture and improve our performance with much more teamwork and transparency:

The Golden Rule – Things like loud distracting radios, inappropriate pictures at workstations and porn surfing were no longer tolerated. They showed a lack of respect for others, constituted sexual harassment, contributed to an unhealthy work environment, and lowered productivity. Stopping those practices set a new and more positive tone in our operations that contributed to overall happier and more productive associates, and showed we meant what we said in our operating guidelines. It was not easy and required significant courage on the part of the leadership team. But, when one of our top performers was let go for one of these practices – as painful as that was – we and our use of “the card” gained a lot of credibility.

“Every day our goal is TOTAL CUSTOMER SATISFACTION…delivered at a FAIR PRICE.” – All programs suspected of losing money were analyzed in detail, and if we were losing money for no strategic purpose, we raised the pricing and talked with our customers, sometimes losing the business, but improving our overall financial position and strength. Over a previous two- to three-year period, sales had grown about 400 percent and profits had not grown appreciably with an economic downturn looming. Commoditized low margin work can quickly deteriorate in a down economy, but scaling down the people and infrastructure at the same rate is not so easy.

“We do not lie, cheat or steal” – Instead of auditing customer-owned inventory counts for our largest customer, we discovered we were just giving them their own numbers back instead of verifying their counts! We were concerned about how the customer might react when we told them, but we told them quickly once when we found the problem. And we remedied it. Over time, the relationship actually grew and we won more business.

To be clear, I do not believe that any of the people involved in these situations were trying to hurt the company or anyone else. They did not understand the negative effects of what they were doing to the business and had never been told otherwise.

If you went back to the earlier installments in this series, I think you would find elements of all three leadership models presented so far (Good to Great, Conscious Capitalism and the Strategist Competency) in the formalization and following of those few operating guidelines we put in place. For us, the stated guidelines reduced distractions, took a number of variables out of our decision-making processes, allowed more decisions to be made by more associates in the organization, and increased the capacity of our leadership team by spreading out decision-making capability and authorization.

Reflection questions:

  • As you assess your current situation, what are the top two to three questions or problems that repetitively come up in your organization that today can only be handled by you or another member of your leadership team because no one else either knows how or is authorized to respond and/or resolve them?
  • For each of those, is there an operating guideline that could be formalized so that everyone would know the answer and could just respond or resolve it without having to come to you or your leadership team?

In At C-Level #6, Mike writes about his first significant sales challenges as a new CEO and how he and the team were able to turn lemons into lemonade.

To become a more innovative leader, you can begin by taking our free leadership assessments and then enrolling in our online leadership development program.

Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible,  iHeartRADIO, and NPR One.  Stay up-to-date on new shows airing by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.

About the Author

Mike Sayre, executive advisor and organizational transformation practice lead, has been a successful CEO, COO, CFO and board director for multiple organizations in technology (cybersecurity, ecommerce payments processing and engineered computer products) and manufacturing (electronics and steel products). He shares his expertise with client boards and C-Level leaders, and advises, designs, plans, and oversees the implementation of successful strategies for turnarounds, growth, profitability and sustainability.

Mike brings 25+ years of organizational and business leadership and hands-on implementation experience to his clients.  His teams have achieved significant increases in growth, profitability and valuation, as well as shareholder, customer, supplier and employee engagement and satisfaction.

At C-Level #4: Missions vs. Visions, and measuring achievement

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At C-Level #4: Missions vs. Visions, and measuring achievement

At C-Level #4 is the fourth blog of an eight-part series following a first time CEO’s educational journey in a very challenging business environment, and exploring global concepts in leadership theory and practice.

At the end of each blog are reflection questions for readers to consider as they navigate their own leadership journey.

This guest post by Mike Sayre — experienced software, e-commerce and manufacturing services CEO, COO, CFO and Board Director—is based on his first-hand experiences as a fledging CEO. Its intent is to provide additional insight or ideas to those in, close to, aspiring to, or trying to understand the top leadership role in any organization. Mike was also featured in the October 4, 2016 Innovative Leaders Driving Thriving Organizations interview with Maureen Metcalf on VoiceAmerica focusing on the importance of leader trustworthiness in driving organizational change.

As you know from my previous At C-Level posts, I was a first time CEO of a manufacturing services company lacking in leadership and focus, who created a leadership tool – further refined by the company’s leadership team – in the form of a “philosophy card” containing a company mission, vision and operating guidelines. “The card” was often referenced by the leadership team and employees, now referred to as “associates,” to keep everyone focused in the same direction and reduce a lot of first level noise around decision-making processes.

When I first set out about writing the company mission and vision, I was confused about their definitions and the real difference between them. Because everyone seemed to have a different opinion, I settled on mission as being the on-going everyday goal of the journey. My personal mission is “To improve as many lives on this Earth as I can before I leave it.” The company’s mission started with “To improve the lives of all the stakeholders in the company…” Everyday, the company and I could work in alignment to carry out both of those missions.

My definition for vision was a destination for the journey, somewhere out in the distant future, that the entire team could focus on to keep everyone rowing in the same direction. The company’s vision was “To be the best in the business at delivering collaborative technology solutions to industry-leading technology companies.”

Wow, that’s a pretty nebulous vision isn’t it? Why wouldn’t we put together something more definitive, concise and quantifiable?

The truth is, just like the definitions of mission and vision, you need to do what best serves the company’s and your purpose and circumstances. And you do not want to change it every time a shiny new object catches your eye! People need – and want – consistency and stability in order to focus and improve.

Our company was in need of a transformation – specifically, in leadership, strategy, and focus. Our core strengths included our engineering capability with many computer hardware and operating system technologies in the field at the time and our unique ability to collaborate with our customers at the engineering level of their products. In addition, the company had a lot of manufacturing capabilities, so which products and services should be offered to which markets for the best return for the shareholders was not readily apparent. More specificity was not really an option at the time. Leadership and the next level of focus were needed first.

The company’s associates also needed a positive vision they could aspire to. In talking to our associates about our vision, I often replaced “being the best in the business” with “being the best in the world.” It was a more exciting destination for our team and, without that positivity, it was evident to me that many were just working for the money and were otherwise not that engaged with a higher purpose.

Your next question may be “How did you know if you were achieving your mission and/or your vision without more specificity?” Plain and simple…our stakeholders actually told us!

Operational and financial planning, metrics, goals, reporting, analysis, and actions are all objective, and I am a very big believer in all of those. They played a large role in the company’s transformation.

However, achievement of our mission and vision was more subjective, both internally and externally.

With regard to the mission, I saw an immediate shift and improvement in internal attitude, respect, involvement and collaboration among leadership and the associates, aided by the expectations set with the new operating philosophies and guidelines all aimed at improving their lives.

Over a two to three year period, we worked towards our vision by improving financial performance through customer profitability analyses, consolidating domestic operations, honing and executing new business strategies, implementing Agile and Lean methodologies across the organization, and expanding internationally into Europe and Asia. Major external validation that we were on track to achieve our vision finally came from the company’s largest customer. That customer’s head of global engineering and top decision-maker on supplier selection visited the company’s main facility and took me aside to tell me:

“Although smaller, your company is way ahead of your larger competitors around the world.

  • Your engineers actually help us save money by solving problems your competitors don’t even recognize.
  • Your facilities all operate the same, talk the same language, and use the same systems so we can see all of our inventory around the world in just one place. Each facility of your “global” competitors has to be treated like a complete separate supplier, even though they all are under the same ownership.
  • And, lastly, in my 18 years of inspecting manufacturing facilities worldwide, I’ve only see one facility that might be run as well as your main facility here, and that was years ago in Japan!”

The customer’s statements were absolutely an independent affirmation that the company was beginning to achieve it’s vision. After the customer left, his comments were shared with the entire company.

Leading researchers and educators in the field of leadership development write1 that the future of leadership development lies in the Strategist Competency Model, and identify the seven traits exhibited by Strategist leaders. Strategists

  1. care about getting it right ahead of being right;
  2. are unstoppable and unflappable when on a mission;
  3. have the “Balcony View” and are 360 degree thinkers;
  4. have developed interests, expertise, and curiosity beyond the job and organization;
  5. are not constrained by personal appearance but are highly focused on personal behavior;
  6. have the special ability to connect with people at all levels of the organization to create a shared vision; and
  7. welcome collaboration in a quest for novel solutions that serve the highest outcome for all involved.

I aspire to the Strategist level of leadership and have been told that I exhibited many of these traits as a leader in my first time role as CEO. But, I am still developing too, and from time to time, based on the challenges and circumstances, I will also drop down one or more levels in my leadership maturity to fit the situation. I understand this is common.

Reflection questions:

  • As you assess your current situation, on a scale of 1–5 with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, how would you score yourself on the seven traits above? For example, using the first trait, how would you rate yourself on soliciting and selecting the ideas or solutions of others that may be better than your own?
  • How can you use your scores on the seven traits to shape your leadership development plan?

If you scored below a three on any of the factors or scored an average below four, please consider creating a personal leadership development plan with us. Metcalf & Associates and I offer leadership development support and executive advisory services, including transformational change and turnaround consulting.

In our next installment, At C-Level #5, Mike writes about the power of a few stated operating guidelines for the company and how they increased decision-making capabilities and quality, and expanded the CEO and leadership team’s capacity.

To become a more innovative leader, you can begin by taking our free leadership assessments and then enrolling in our online leadership development program.

Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible,  iHeartRADIO, and NPR One.  Stay up-to-date on new shows airing by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.

About the Author

Mike Sayre, executive advisor and organizational transformation practice lead, has been a successful CEO, COO, CFO and board director for multiple organizations in technology (cybersecurity, ecommerce payments processing and engineered computer products) and manufacturing (electronics and steel products). He shares his expertise with client boards and C-Level leaders, and advises, designs, plans, and oversees the implementation of successful strategies for turnarounds, growth, profitability and sustainability.

Mike brings 25+ years of organizational and business leadership and hands-on implementation experience to his clients.  His teams have achieved significant increases in growth, profitability and valuation, as well as shareholder, customer, supplier and employee engagement and satisfaction.

1 The Strategist Competency Model: The Future of Leadership Development – a chapter in the book Leadership 2050 by Susan Cannon, PhD and principle, Evolucent Consulting, Michael Morrow-Fox, principle, Metcalf & Associates, Inc., and Maureen Metcalf, CEO of Metcalf & Associates

At C-Level #3: How many bosses can a CEO have?

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How many bosses can a CEO have?At C-Level #3 is the third blog of an eight-part series following a first time CEO’s educational journey in a very challenging business environment, and exploring global concepts in leadership theory and practice.  

At the end of each blog are reflection questions for readers to consider as they navigate their own leadership journey.

This guest post by Mike Sayre — experienced software, e-commerce and manufacturing services CEO, COO, CFO and Board Director—is based on his first-hand experiences as a fledging CEO. Its intent is to provide additional insight or ideas to those in, close to, aspiring to, or trying to understand the top leadership role in any organization. Mike was also featured in the October 4, 2016 Innovative Leadership, Co-creating Our Future interview with Maureen Metcalf on VoiceAmerica focusing on the importance of leader trustworthiness in driving organizational change.

As you know from my previous At C-Level posts, I was a first time CEO of a manufacturing services company lacking in leadership and focus, who created a leadership tool – further refined by the company’s leadership team – in the form of a “philosophy card” containing a company mission, vision and operating guidelines that aligned with my own personal mission, vision, and operating philosophies. “The card” was often referenced by the leadership team and employees, now referred to as “associates,” to keep everyone focused in the same direction and reduce a lot of first-level noise around decision-making processes.

However, the importance of “the card” extended far beyond the leadership team and even the company’s associates. When I took over the CEO responsibilities, I understood I reported directly to the board, who represented the shareholders of the company. But I quickly realized I also had additional responsibilities to serve several other groups, or “bosses,” as well!

Appropriately then, the company’s new mission statement needed to reflect all my new “bosses,” which I preferred to refer to as our company’s stakeholders. One of the goals of this rather lengthy mission statement (and lengthy mission statements are not traditionally recommended) was to get everyone in the company to think about their responsibilities from a more global perspective.

Here is “the card” with the company’s mission and vision statements (the operating guidelines were on the reverse side):

sayre-values

 

For now, let’s just look at the mission and to what the team referred to as the “stakeholder star” with its five points that represent the five key stakeholders in the company and our major responsibilities to them: shareholders, associates, customers, suppliers, and communities.

In strategic, and even many tactical, decision-making processes, the “stakeholder star” was used by the leadership team to make sure they thought through the effects any final decisions would have on all the stakeholders moving forward. Many decisions favored one or two groups over the others, but not without going through the thought processes of how everyone was going to be affected, and making informed and conscious decisions with that information in mind.

In addition to the mission statement being given to current, prospective, and new company associates on the philosophy card, it was also posted on the company’s website. We gave the philosophy card to shareholders, customers, suppliers, and other community leaders as well. It outwardly displayed the company’s commitments to all its stakeholders and was greatly appreciated and respected. When the company expanded into Europe and Asia, “the card” and the demonstration by the leadership of how the company lived by it were attractive to eventual partners and new associates.

It’s Important to remember that as a for-profit public company, my number one fiduciary responsibility as CEO was to maximize the shareholders’ return on the investment. Unless you own the company, the shareholders employ you.

However, many C-level leaders underestimate how important it is to have all of the stakeholders cooperating to achieve those desired returns. Many leaders focus on one or two stakeholders without considering the rest. Understanding why all your key stakeholder groups are involved and what their expectations are is very important.

In addition, it’s essential to communicate that decisions are consistent with your mission and vision, and how the decisions you make will eventually get the stakeholders what they want. Managing their expectations is key. Utilizing the stakeholder star helps you better understand and be able to convey the trade-offs between stakeholder groups. It is a delicate balance.

My first CEO leadership journey paralleled a model called Conscious Capitalism that is currently getting significant attention in leadership development circles. I did not know it at the time, but we put into practice what the Conscious Capitalism movement seeks to accomplish.

In Maureen Metcalf’s recent “Innovative Leaders Driving Thriving Organizations” interview with Thea Polancic, the founder and executive director of the Chicago Chapter of Conscious Capitalism, Inc., (interview link) Metcalf and Polancic discussed the four pillars of Conscious Capitalism:

  1. Conscious Leadership – leadership motivated by a purpose
  2. Stakeholder Orientation – leadership attending to the health of an “ecosystem” of stakeholders, constantly balancing competing needs and expectations
  3. Conscious Culture – cultural agreement throughout the organization to accomplish the organizational purpose or mission
  4. Higher Purpose – the business has a higher purpose in addition to making money: money and profits are required as the fuel that feeds the organization’s ability to deliver on its purpose

My journey developing clarity around my personal purpose, aligning the company mission, vision, and operating guidelines, creating “the card,” and building a purpose-driven culture –

including how the mission statement was used to instill a stakeholder orientation in the company – is an example of how Conscious Capitalism can be successfully implemented and work in an organization.

Prime examples of major companies practicing Conscious Capitalism today include Whole Foods Market, led by CEO John Mackey, and Southwest Airlines, led by former CEO Herb Kelleher and current CEO Gary Kelly (Southwest’s former CFO).

Reflection questions:

  • Who are the major stakeholders in your company?
  • If your business stopped operations today, who would be affected?
  • If a key stakeholder stopped supporting the company and/or ceased to exist, how would it affect your organization?
  • What do you think is your major responsibility to each of your major stakeholder groups? How do you consciously, or unconsciously, fulfill those responsibilities today? Are you fulfilling those responsibilities?

In At C-Level #4, Mike will discuss the company’s ambitious vision on “the card” and how achieving the vision was measured.

To become a more innovative leader, you can begin by taking our free leadership assessments and then enrolling in our online leadership development program.

Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible,  iHeartRADIO, and NPR One.  Stay up-to-date on new shows airing by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.

About the Author

Mike Sayre, executive advisor and organizational transformation practice lead, has been a successful CEO, COO, CFO and board director for multiple organizations in technology (cybersecurity, ecommerce payments processing and engineered computer products) and manufacturing (electronics and steel products). He shares his expertise with client boards and C-Level leaders, and advises, designs, plans, and oversees the implementation of successful strategies for turnarounds, growth, profitability and sustainability.

Mike brings 25+ years of organizational and business leadership and hands-on implementation experience to his clients.  His teams have achieved significant increases in growth, profitability and valuation, as well as shareholder, customer, supplier and employee engagement and satisfaction.

At C-Level #2: Too much noise!

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At C-Level #2: Too much noise!At C-Level #2 is the second blog of an eight-part series following a first time CEO’s educational journey in a very challenging business environment, and exploring global concepts in leadership theory and practice.  

At the end of each blog are reflection questions for readers to consider as they navigate their own leadership journey.

This guest post by Mike Sayre — experienced software, e-commerce and manufacturing services CEO, COO, CFO and Board Director—is based on his first-hand experiences as a fledging CEO. Its intent is to provide additional insight or ideas to those in, close to, aspiring to, or trying to understand the top leadership role in any organization. Mike was also featured in the October 4, 2016 Innovative Leadership, Co-creating Our Future interview with Maureen Metcalf on VoiceAmerica focusing on the importance of leader trustworthiness in driving organizational change.

I was a first time CEO of a manufacturing services company that was lacking in leadership and focus. I had been the CFO for five years and sensed these shortcomings were somewhat shortsighted as well. I thought things could be better and tried to fill in some of those gaps as CFO. However, providing leadership and focus for the whole company as CEO had just become my main responsibility and the questions I was being asked by the team quickly sharpened my sense of how much more important leadership and focus were than I had ever thought before!

Prior to me becoming CEO, the company had engaged a leadership coach, Chet, for the management team. Chet had been running periodic leadership development sessions with the group. However, and somewhat surprising to me, the sessions after the CEO change quickly eroded into serious complaint sessions, raising even more questions and doubt about the company’s lack of leadership and focus.

All of this noise was totally distracting the leadership of the company, including me! So I asked Chet for personal coaching as well.

Chet counseled me, “You can’t lead others until you can lead yourself.” Then he proceeded to ask me some very personal questions…my life’s purpose, what I wanted out of life, my work/life balance, etc. I was very uncomfortable talking about myself and was having a hard time figuring out how to respond to this line of questioning, let alone how it would help the company!

So Chet gave me a long list of personal questions and asked me to write not only my gut reactions to each one, but also why I felt that way. Chet had no interest in seeing what I wrote, he said it was only for me to use.

Over the next several weeks, I wrote in two- to four-hour intervals until I had several of the questions answered, as well as several “why” follow-ups for each one. At first, it was a very painful process. But as I pushed through, it got easier. The process of self-exploration and giving it life through writing it down provided me with such a high level of clarity of what I am all about and what is important to me, that I felt a huge weight of personal uncertainty lifting off my shoulders and being replaced with a much greater sense of self worth and confidence.

However, while I felt stronger and more confident, the company’s leadership and focus challenges had still not been addressed. I now needed to use what I learned and share my newfound clarity. So in about two hours on a flight to the West Coast, I created the first draft of a “philosophy card” for the company with a mission, vision and operating guidelines that aligned with my own personal mission, vision and operating philosophies. The leadership team fine-tuned “the card,” and had it printed and distributed to all of the company’s associates. I personally provided a training session for the associates and went over each section of the card so the associates all knew how much I believed in the mission and vision, and how serious I was about following the operating guidelines.

Thereafter, “the card” was often referenced in both leadership and associate meetings. It was easy for me to reference and consistently apply the philosophies and guidelines on the card because of my own personal alignment with them. It also made it very easy for everyone else to make decisions, even when I was not around, because they knew “the card” was where I would start my thought process. Using it as a leadership tool became second nature to me and our team, and significant improvements in leadership, focus and performance were almost immediate. It was a great first step in a longer and more complex turnaround process.

Note: Many companies have “philosophy cards.” But, if you don’t directly refer to it and demonstrate your use of what’s on it in your daily interactions, it’s not worth having. If it isn’t used, it becomes a negative and is just thought of as meaningless rhetoric that impugns your integrity. I first learned how to effectively use a philosophy card during my time at Worthington Industries, and I’ve since used a similar card in an e-commerce company with great success.

In Jim Collins’ bestselling book Good to Great, leaders shared firm belief in seven tenets, three of which our processes and the resulting “philosophy card” fully supported and which helped me drive company progress forward:

  • Find the truth and act on it by facing the brutal facts of reality while maintaining an unwavering faith that you will succeed. [What was happening in those leadership development sessions was getting to the brutal truth and I had to start addressing it!]
  • Stay focused on the essentials, stop the distractions, and cultivate that discipline. [“The card” brought new focus on the mission and vision of the company, and the operating guidelines cut way down on the distractions caused by uncertainty around what kinds of behaviors were expected.]
  • Greatness comes from sustained commitment to disciplined people, disciplined thinking, and disciplined action that creates breakthrough momentum. [“The card” and it’s constant and consistent communication and application introduced a level of discipline that did not previously exist!]

Reflection questions:

Here are some personal questions for you to answer for yourself. Write the answers in free form and do not worry about formatting, etc. Just write. Nobody else needs to see your writing. Then ask yourself “Why do I think that?” Then ask the same question again up to four more times. By the fifth “Why?,” you should be at the real core of your thought processes and truly begin to understand what makes you…well, you! Many people will totally resist taking the time to write it all down, just as I did initially. Push forward and do it anyway! The process of writing actually activates the brain in a different and deeper way than just “thinking” about the topic.

  • What is your greatest fear? Why is it your greatest fear? Why? Why? Why? Why?
  • Who has been the most influential person in your life? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
  • What is your purpose in life? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
  • How does/will your current company/role help you accomplish your purpose in life? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Take your time in thinking through these questions, formulating your thoughts, and writing your responses. There are no right or wrong answers. It’s okay if you don’t do it in one sitting. Spread it over days if you need to. Knowing with great clarity how you feel deep down is important for you and your organization, and it takes time!

For additional support creating your own personal mission and values statements, please see the Innovative Leadership Fieldbook and its corresponding workbooks that contain a chapter that will guide you through a more in-depth process. My reflection process to clarify my personal mission and values, and also those of the company, was very similar. Our leadership team then took my ideas as input and developed something they could all align around and consistently implement in the company. This process allowed them to reduce ambiguity and act as one team with a clear focus.

In At C-Level #3, Mike will write about having several new bosses (yes, that’s plural…do you only have only one or two?), how he approached that challenge and the conscious capitalism movement: leadership with purpose.

About the Author

Mike Sayre, executive advisor and organizational transformation practice lead, has been a successful CEO, COO, CFO and board director for multiple organizations in technology (cybersecurity, ecommerce payments processing and engineered computer products) and manufacturing (electronics and steel products). He shares his expertise with client boards and C-Level leaders, and advises, designs, plans, and oversees the implementation of successful strategies for turnarounds, growth, profitability and sustainability.

Mike brings 25+ years of organizational and business leadership and hands-on implementation experience to his clients.  His teams have achieved significant increases in growth, profitability and valuation, as well as shareholder, customer, supplier and employee engagement and satisfaction.

At C-Level #1: What’s it like to be a first time CEO?

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First time CEOAt C-Level #1 is the beginning of an eight-part blog series following a first time CEO’s educational journey in a very challenging business environment, and exploring global concepts in leadership theory and practice.

At the end of each blog are reflection questions for readers to consider as they navigate their own leadership journey.

This guest post by Mike Sayre — experienced software, e-commerce and manufacturing services CEO, COO, CFO and Board Director—is based on his first-hand experiences as a fledging CEO. Its intent is to provide additional insight or ideas to those in, close to, aspiring to, or trying to understand the top leadership role in any organization. Mike was also featured in the October 4, 2016 Innovative Leadership, Co-creating Our Future interview with Maureen Metcalf on VoiceAmerica focusing on the importance of leader trustworthiness in driving organizational change.

I had been the CFO of a manufacturing services company for about five years, reporting directly to the founder and CEO. Over that time, I was able to lead in greatly improving the financial operations and reporting of the company, engineered a significant financial turnaround, learned everything I could about the business and the people in it, became the founder’s closest advisor in the business, and gained the total trust and confidence of both the founder and the board.

In an unexpected turn of events, the founder of the company, much more experienced and happier leading technology development for the business, asked me to take over as CEO of the company while he took on the role of Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

The founder was the third CEO I had worked closely with in my career and, through observation, I actually thought I knew what the CEO’s job was all about…strategy and planning, relationships with large customers and suppliers and the board, driving for higher sales and lower costs, rallying the troops around the company’s goals and objectives, etc. I also loved the company, its people, capabilities, and prospects for the future. So I accepted the job.

The first couple of days were fairly calm, but over the ensuing weeks the problems and questions got more complicated and began coming at an accelerated pace:

  • We are losing money on a couple of new very large accounts representing most of our sales growth. What do we do?
  • Our largest customer, upset with late deliveries, is requiring a daily meeting in which he verbally abuses our best customer service representative, and she is talking about leaving. How should we handle this?
  • Our latest acquisition is not well integrated and is bleeding money. Why is this happening?
  • Our competitors all have locations in Europe and Asia and some of our largest customers will no longer let us bid on new work because we only have one location in the U.S. How can we develop international capabilities?

However, the most pressing questions to me came from the vice president of sales who was trying to figure out what exactly he was trying to sell:

  • What are we trying to do here? What is our mission? What do we want to be when we grow up?
  • Who is our target market, and what is our value to them?
  • What are our core values?
  • What are our goals and priorities?
  • How do we make all these decisions that we’ve never made before, let alone execute on them?

At this point, I realized what the company had been missing, why being the CEO had been so frustrating for the founder, and what being the CEO was really about…leadership and focus.

Gene Early wrote an executive summary of Jim Collins’ bestselling book Good to Great. I review that executive summary from time to time to help me keep the focus on what it can take to “breakthrough” from being a “good” company to becoming a “great” one. “Understanding that drives action” is one way to describe it. Good to Great companies worked to understand at a deep level what made their company work, and by continually looking for new answers to the question, they developed the momentum to break through to greatness. Their leaders understood these seven basic tenets that Collins put forth in the book:

  1. Success is not about the leader as a person, but about the success of the company;
  2. The right people in the right seats on the bus make all the difference;
  3. Find the truth and act on it by facing the brutal facts of reality while maintaining an unwavering faith that you will succeed;
  4. Tapping passion, extraordinary competence, and the key economic driver builds progressive momentum;
  5. Stay focused on the essentials and stop the distractions, and cultivate that discipline;
  6. Technology is best used to accelerate momentum, not create it; and
  7. Greatness comes from a sustained commitment to disciplined people, disciplined thinking, and disciplined action that creates breakthrough momentum.

Collins placed the leaders who moved companies from good to great in the top level of his developmental hierarchy and called them “Level 5” leaders. He characterized them as having “a unique combination of humility and fierce resolve.”

Reflection questions:

  • As you assess your current situation, on a scale of 1–5 with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, how would you score yourself on the seven tenets above? For example, using the first tenet, how would you rate yourself on putting your company’s success before your own?
  • How can you use your scores on the seven tenets to shape your leadership development plan?

If you scored below a three on any of the factors or scored an average below four, please consider creating a personal leadership development plan with us. Metcalf & Associates and I offer leadership development support and executive advisory services, including transformational change and turnaround consulting.

In At C-Level #2, Mike will tell us what he did to get started and how he decided—after much inner turmoil—to approach the new and very exciting challenges before him!

About the Author

Mike Sayre, executive advisor and organizational transformation practice lead, has been a successful CEO, COO, CFO, and board director for multiple organizations in technology (cybersecurity, e-commerce payments processing, and engineered computer products) and manufacturing (electronics and steel products). He shares his expertise with client boards and C-Level leaders, and advises, designs, plans, and oversees the implementation of successful strategies for turnarounds, growth, profitability, and sustainability.

Mike brings 25+ years of organizational and business leadership and hands-on implementation experience to his clients.  His teams have achieved significant increases in growth, profitability, and valuation, as well as shareholder, customer, supplier, and employee engagement and satisfaction.