The CEO Tightrope: How to Master the Balancing Act of a Successful CEO (Joel Trammell, 2014)
Briefly identified all the areas a CEO need to focus on and how to be a all area CEO than those commonly-fund-raising-as-their-priority CEOs. Not everything is solution here, suitable for people who are already a CEO to read as many intriguing question to need a thinker to solve. Rated: 8/10
- Bill Gates: “Success is a lousy teacher, it seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose”
- CEO hats
- The player hat - contributing
- The coach hat - talent development
- The architect hat - strategy
- The engineer hat - operations
- The learner hat - continuous improvement
- The priest hat - morale
- Transparency, communicate the intent downwards
- How to encourage the team when the company going through a rough patch and how to maintain a big win on your team with relevant boost for the next quarter
- Be that CEO your employee can discuss problems with and not trying to hide and make things worse
- Review constantly your strategic initiations, competitive analysis and lessons from customers
- Budget tyrants (divine creation from infallible god), budget blower (every shiny object draw his attention)
- How do you manage an unexpected opportunity beyond your budget?
- Rule of 45: operating margin to exceed 45%
- Simon Sinek: “great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them”
- How to practice impartial for the people you know and how not to let the managers do the dirty jobs by moving people around instead of firing them
- The decision nexus: to please the customers, employees and shareholders
- Abraham Lincoln: “nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power”
- Be a better CEO: learn from experience, attend training program, read, write, meet with wise people, teach, study yourself, gather feedback, seek out mentors, apply your knowledge