John (name and identifying data changed) asked me to coach him.
He’d recently been appointed as the CEO of his engineering firm, which provides turnkey process infrastructure.
John is an engineer and for the last four years had been the senior engineer in charge of production output, reporting to the previous CEO.
He asked me to help him with his people skills.
His board had received complaints that John was micro-managing and would lose his temper over detail that didn’t fit his professional opinion.
John’s board recommended he get my help.
I asked John, “What bothers you most about your role?”
John said, “My engineers aren’t delivering what we promise.”
I asked, “What’s the promise?”
“That we deliver on time and to specification,” he said.
“Where is the promise being broken?” I asked.
“We are always behind time,” replied John, “and timing is a competitive element in our winning the work.”
“Why are we behind time?” I asked.
“Because we are always reworking and fixing errors,” John replied, clearly getting agitated with my questions.
I let John off the hook right then.
I said, “OK John, for me to be of the best help I can for you, I need to understand how others are seeing the situation. Do you mind if I speak with your direct reports?”
“Sure go ahead,” said John.
After speaking with the direct reports and speaking with their top three clients, I was ready to engage with John again.
“John, do you feel we might be over-engineering?” I asked.
“No, our mission is to deliver the highest quality we possibly can,” answered John.
“Isn’t that different to delivery on time and to specification?” I ventured.
John paused. “Yes, but we need to ensure we never get criticised for poor workmanship.”
“OK, and if we are delivering to specification, isn’t that covered?” I asked.
Silence.
“So if delivering to specification does deliver our promise, what else might be bothering you?” I asked.
John said, “I’m responsible for our company reputation. I won’t be at the helm and allow us to be criticised for poor workmanship.”
“Did you feel like this in your previous role when you oversaw production?” I asked.
John hesitated, “No actually.”
“Did your firm ever get criticised for not delivering to specification?” I asked.
“Not in my memory,” said John.
“So if you saw John the CEO, from the position of John the previous production manager, what advice would you give him, knowing what you know?”
John looked down, adjusted his glasses and after a pause looked up and said, “It changes doesn’t it, when the buck stops with you?”
“Does it?” I asked. “What has actually changed?”
John thought and said, “What changed is that I’m still responsible even though I’m no longer doing the work.”
I said, “Because we are talking about the buck stopping with you, do you think the term is accountable rather than responsible?
As production manager, you were then responsible for workmanship. You were closer to the action.
Now, as CEO, you are accountable for everything related to execution.”
I then asked, “Did you choose your replacement production head?” John nodded.
“Has he ever let you down?” I asked. John shook his head.
I paused. John was thinking, then began nodding.
“And what else now?” I asked.
“I need to trust them and let them get on with it. Jobs don’t go out unless they’re up to specification. Our system is actually very robust,” said John.
One more question was necessary to complete this work.
“And John, how many ways can we do the work and still deliver to specification?”
John nodded, “Yep, there are a few.”
John remains an outstanding, respected CEO.
Does any of this resonate with you?
Photo courtesy of Caleb Wright
