The Job of a CEO- What a CEO does?

As a entrepreneur, this happens to be the most important question to be asked. The answer to this question helps you keep yourself accountable for your job (and helps you focus on the stuff that needs to be done, and not the one that can be done.)

From the top-view, I guess this article by Fred Wilson, a New York-based venture capitalist sums up pretty well..

A CEO does only three things. Sets the overall vision and strategy of the company and communicates it to all stakeholders. Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company. Makes sure there is always enough cash in the bank.

But I am very keen on reading comments for all articles I go through. It gives us a lot of perspective (many a times, contradictory one). And when I read the first comment to the above article, I was baffled by the amount of information Jeffrey L Minch of Musing of the Big Red Car has put it.. I thought, why not make it an article in itself?

Jeff has a interesting background (which he mentions first thing in the comment). Very briefly, he has been CEO for 30 years for companies of all size, both private and public. Now he acts as a CEO coach (no doubt he has such a skill of articulation).

Here is what Jeff says on what a CEO has to do (the comment is so simple and yet understandable, I would just do the formatting, content remains the same):

The CEO has to be a leader in the context of leaders being folks who get organizations to places they would never get by themselves.

He has to want to be a leader. He has to be comfortable being a leader — — or able to deal with the attendant discomfort gracefully. He has to be able to say — — “I am responsible for EVERYTHING that happens or fails to happen at this company.” And then make it so and believable and live it.

The CEO has to set the tone of everything. big and small by the values he projects, by the way he conducts himself and by the he deals with everyone and everything. The CEO has to go to the trouble to formulate these values in a concrete way. I have a little booklet which I have developed over 30 years which quantifies the values I am looking for and I personally give it to every new employee their first day of employment.

The CEO has to set a vision for the company. Commit it to writing. Argue for its attainability — — even when it is seemingly nuts. This is the FIRST sale that any company has to make. It has to sell the idea for its own existence.

The CEO has to be a good thinker, a better writer and a powerful communicator. When a CEO gets done communicating — — you have to believe you really could bite the ass off a bear. Guess what, you could!

The CEO has to transform the idealistic vision into bite sized specific objectives which are SMART — — specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and temporal. How do you eat an elephant? One bit at a time — — the CEO has to hack off the first bites for the rest of the executive staff.

The CEO has to organize the functions of the company to provide a logical way of accomplishing the vision both through the objectives noted above but also by talking folks through their respective duties. By coaching his subordinates to execute at a high level of competence and excellence even — — especially — — when the fledgling efforts are terrible. This is particularly true in new companies.

The CEO has to be a trainer able to train folks, different than coaching which is primarily mental — — to discharge their duties. When you hire good experienced folks then all the CEO has to do is document what is going to be done rather than training them as to what to do.

The CEO has to be a disciplinarian and has to invoke accountability within the organization. Not a raised voice stinging kind of discipline but rather a “you have to eat your vegetables” kind of discipline that says not only is this a good way to do things, you have to do it this way because we are in a competition to win. Discipline means — — in it, to win it.

The CEO has to recruit, inspire and drive talent to levels of personal and team performance that exceed the expectations of the practitioners themselves. He has to remember that there are cycles of energy and that you have to find the right time to make things come together particularly when dealing with a team and team building. You do not produce Rangers in a long weekend and a company offsite is not going to transform your company from good to great. You have to be patient and painstaking. You have to be wiley and canny and sly.

The CEO has to be able to reduce what the company does to logical processes that can be documented, understood, streamlined, lubricated and improved. But you have to start w/ identifying and documenting the most important processes.

The CEO has to force the company to be “customer centric” and focused completely on from whence the cash flows. You cannot tolerate a single disparaging comment about the customers.

Most importantly — — the CEO has to face down risk with a steady gaze which inspires confidence amongst the executive team.