From Doer to CEO: Working on Your Company rather than in it

When I started my business, I was one of “them.” As a software programmer, I developed roughly 50% of our initial product release elbow-to-elbow with my programming staff. It was clear we were all in it together and shared a great deal of the successes and bumps in the road.

As my business started to grow, I realized I had to pull out of my role as programmer and transition to the CEO. Unfortunately I had no idea what this meant. Over the subsequent seven years as we built our business to multi-millions in revenues, I learned many valuable lessons about how to make that transition. The following, taken from my book “The ParentPreneur Edge: What Parenting Teaches About Building a Successful Business (Wiley)” can help prepare you make the successful transformation into the company’s leader.

1. It is more important to be fair than liked. When I was working at the same level as my employees, I was part of the gang. When I began to extract myself from the day-to-day development of our products I began to realize how alone I was. I was often faced with tough decisions that one way or another would upset someone. For example, while we believed in providing flexibility in our work arrangements, not every position in the company afforded the same flexible work possibilities. While a programmer may be able to develop software from home, an office manager hired to answer the phones would have a hard time fulfilling his duties working from home. While it was a clear business decision, my office manager wasn’t thrilled with it.

2. Find and use outside advisors. The saying that it is lonely at the top is true. It is especially hard if you started out as a doer in your company. Finding and using outside advisors whom you can use as sounding boards helps mitigate the growing isolation you can feel as your company begins to grow. Likewise, if you feel lost in your new role and unsure what you should be doing like I did, an advisor can help direct your focus to the aspects of your business that require your leadership to move the company forward.
3. Hire for cultural fit before skills. Many skills, with the exception of highly technical disciplines, can be taught and refined. Attitude and work ethic, however, rarely change over time. I learned the hard way in building my management team that just because someone has a fantastic resume and all the right skills, their methods and approaches may not be cohesive with your company’s culture.
4. It’s not personal, it’s just business. I agonized over every decision I had to make that impacted an employee. Even when a decision was clear, I felt I was letting people down if I had to disapprove their request or, worse, let them go. Likewise, when someone quit or had a problem with a decision I had made, I took it personally. I learned quickly that growing a business in that manner would be not only painful but counter-productive. After all, employees will ultimately do what is best for them no matter how loyal they appear. While it is good to consider the impact of your decisions on your employees, you should ultimately do what is best for the business.
5. Embrace “no.” If you’re not hearing “no” from customers, your not going after enough work. We used to boast about our 100% proposal win rate but the truth was, we weren’t going after enough new opportunities. The odds are that if you are pursuing enough work, you’ll get rejected. Oftentimes, you can learn as much or more from a lost contract that you do from a project you land. Likewise, if you’re not turning any customers down, you don’t have a strategy. Saying “yes” to any work that comes your way can leave your business unfocused and diminish your odds for strategically positioning your company for future growth.

By taking the above lessons to heart, you will position not only your company but yourself to support the growth of your company while keeping your sanity in tact.

This post was written by Startup Princess Fairy Godmother Julie Lenzer Kirk. Award winning entrepreneur, author, and sought-after speaker, Julie Lenzer Kirk works with businesses and entrepreneurs to help them navigate the murky waters of business success and set a course for greatness. She provides consulting and training services and as a speaker, addresses audiences across the United States on business success. She is the author of The ParentPreneur Edge: What Parenting Teaches about Building a Successful Business.