Randy Komisar talked about different CEO styles in The Monk and the Riddle
- Phase 1 Starters that are all ideas, excitement and enthusiasm - these folks get the thing off the ground. Starters are riskoholics - they love the challenge of impossible odds.
- Phase 2 Growers that are more organised - they replace the starters, and build the organisation through the first couple of years. They are risk managers rather than balls-to-the-wall risk takers like the Starters.
- Phase 3 Maintainers that are very good process people - they thin out the early excess weight in the organisation and settle it down into a good value proposition for shareholders. Maintainers are risk-averse and performance means more to them than relationships, steady and guaranteed growth more than a shot at the truly remarkable.
There is world enough and time for all three styles. All are necessary, indeed vital, within their respective phase.
The time comes in the growth of every organisation where the Starters need to move on, and let the Growers take over.
Me, I’m a Starter. I love big scary ideas - I’ve described it as going down a hill on a pushbike, and turning a corner at the bottom of the hill going a little too fast - I can’t sustain it for long, but I love the feeling of the back wheel starting to skip out… that moment in time when success and failure hang in the balance, and there is no alternative but to just do it.
What this means is, being totally self-honest, is that I am good at inspiring others to get into an idea - a concept, a cause, a dream. I need to recognise that there will come a time when the Growers and Maintainers have to do their stuff, and step aside gracefully. Sometimes, it isn’t easy, especially when people figure that because they don’t need me at that hand over time, that they never did need me around. It is OK. Starters can be tempted to see Growers and Maintainers as wimps, and Growers to see Starters as foolhardy.
In my own mind, I’ve recently completed one job of Starting something, and am moving onto the Next Big Thing - a community project that may not have any visible signs for several months. I’ve discussed how I feel about this change of project with Donna, who is a Starter herself: she is currently forced into a Grower/Maintainer role with one of the community projects that she is involved in, and is feeling somewhat resentful towards Starters at the moment. Her distress is real, and I sympathise.
The moral of this tale, such as it is, is to understand your true nature and work with it.
I am a Starter. I start things. If the cause be worthy and the premise just, let there be Growers and Maintainers to compliment my need to start things. But please, do let me start them, for in the end they may be truly wonderful.