Listen and Create Your Charter

As a fifth time CEO, I have bootstrapped my own organizations and I have taken over existing ones.  Which one is harder?  Taking control of an existing organization is certainly the most challenging and I blogged about how to find a great fitting CEO job last month.  My advice to anyone in this situation is to spend the first few weeks listening to people from each area of the organization carefully.  In those first few weeks, build a mind map of the high level process for the organization – product development, lead generation, prospect qualification, proposals and contracts, production, shipment, invoicing, collections, quality assurance - literally everything that makes up turning ideas or widgets into cash.  Once you’ve listened to each area, you will be able to determine weak points in the organization and the current major focus of the management team. 

It is also important to understand clearly why the board of directors brought you in.  After all, you’re an outsider.  What wasn’t the board or company getting from those already in the company?  What created the need for bringing in someone from the outside?  Was it to fix a problem in a certain area?  Was it growth?  Was it fund raising?  Knowing what that goal was by the board, and helping them reach those goals, should be one of your primary focuses.  Those first few weeks listening should give you great insight into how to achieve the goals for which you were hired.

Leading Indicators

As quickly as possible, you must focus on getting real-time information about where the company is going, and most specifically the areas in which you want to fix.  Examine the available internal software applications and insist that information is provided to you in summary format.  Leading indicators, or as business consultants, we like to call them Key Performance Indicators, which are critical to making decisions on implementing new initiatives or improving existing initiatives that get you to where the company is going.  Having this summary or “dashboard” of Key Performance Indicators, however small, will hopefully allow you to measure the daily, weekly or monthly trends. 

You must ensure the company is focused on the future and not dazing into the rear-view mirror looking only at historical data.  Point people forward and begin asking questions about what they think the future looks like in their market, products or services and especially financials. 

Communicate

You should quickly determine your short-term focus.  Make assessments about what is holding back growth.  If demand is outpacing supply, what bottlenecks in your production capacity are keeping you from reaching that demand?  If quality is an issue, focus on that area.  If sourcing raw materials are an issue, focus on that.  If supply or inventory are outpacing demand, what is it about demand that is keeping you from growing?  If it is a lack of leads, focus on marketing.  Determine what’s working and tap people around you to experiment with new initiatives.  Assess your sales team and determine if you need to improve or upgrade the existing staff.  Regardless what your initial focus is, communicate your intentions of that focus with the team so as to set their expectations.  You heard a lot in those first few weeks, and some people may expect you to work magic for their problem but your short-term focus may not be in their area.  Acknowledge what you heard needs to improve but communicate frequently about your focus and accomplishments made by the team.