MANAGEMENT
How is the chief executive officer of any institution selected? The board of directors appoints one from outside the institution or they search for an internal candidate who may have grown through the ranks and may have likely been on the radar of the board, as a potential candidate. Regardless, whether the chosen one is from outside or inside the organisation, the candidate has to have some basic characteristics present in his/her persona. What are these minimum traits? The individual must have business acumen, a vision, be a leader with all its attending characteristics, and most importantly, be a good manager of the human capital of the organisation.
Sometimes, the boards make mistakes in choosing this key executive, and hence have to suffer agony for the term of the appointment, or they choose to act as ‘guillotine keepers’ and chop literally ‘the head of the institution’. Both courses for the board are difficult, because repute is at an all-time stake, when choosing or removing their own selection.
On becoming CEO, the first time, I asked a colleague to evaluate my performance, after a few months into the assignment. The individual, without even battling the eye-lid, in fact with more of a twinkle in the eye, responded with, “You are a blabbering CEO!”...‘What?’ I said, more in shock than in anger. Shocked, because I thought of myself as a man of few words. “What is blabbering or babbling?” I asked. “Well to begin, if a colleague asks you a simple everyday work-related question, you take upon yourself the responsibility to make a two-hour speech of trivia and loads of nonsense, as an addendum, meandering through unrelated subjects till such a time when the questioner loses interest in your views and begins to curse himself to be in your company.” The outspoken colleague hit me hard with a reality dosage. And from the ensuing discussion, I gathered the following thoughts:
The babbling CEO is akin to the brook that makes a continuous murmuring sound – leading to incessant talking, revealing secrets and divulging the unnecessary by foolish conversation. Babies look good when they babble, because their babbling makes no sense owing to innocence; but a CEO’s babbling is repulsive – the sounds, words and fury are all detestable. The tattler converses in trifling-ly. A much-babbling CEO is not without offence as one who talks much, is likely to err much as well. Let not thy tongue run away with your brains, as is commonly said.
All staff likes to see a CEO, who is amiable, understanding, and possesses an inexhaustible reserve of empathy. The CEO is expected to be friendly, but not pally. The quiet CEO and the blabbering CEO are the opposite ends of the spectrum of the quality of a CEO. While being in conversation, either with individual colleagues or with several in meetings, he must remain cognizant that he is neither on the pulpit nor addressing a public gathering. He shouldn’t be projecting himself as a hero, a villain or even as a cheap comedian; there is no room for stand up comedy in the board room. No CEO should have a wandering mind or even worse, a wandering tongue!
A CEO should be grounded in speech. Even if not formally trained in economics, the CEO must learn quickly to ‘economise’ his speech or spoken word. He must display at all times, sobriety and unimpeachable uprightness. A successful CEO in the eyes of staff is one who remains focused on the subject during discussions. He is not expected to behave like the curious monkey jumping from one trapeze post to another, to make the crowd laugh. A CEO shouldn’t be holding ‘Corporate Mehfils’ when just a meeting is required. There ought to be no qawwalis or majalis. He should be brief, to the point and concise in conversation. A man is hid under his tongue. A CEO must say with thinking, what most say unthinkingly.
A focused discussion should mean brevity in speech. It must lead to humility in expression, but be mindful; too humble is half-proud. In any case, within the corporate environment, the most preachable traits are humility and modesty. More so, because they are practiced the least, on the working platform.
The ability of the great pianist is not to touch the right keys on the board, but also in the ability to not touch those that would render and make his effort a failure. Speak and then you can only repent. “Whom the disease of talking still once possesses, he (read: CEO) can never hold his peace.” Too much talking is not merely prone to errors, but also substantially wastes the time of the CEO and of course, his ‘bored and (maybe) expensive audience’. The little said is quickly amendable. A barking dog is good, but a manager or CEO is not. Concise speech has very little regrets. The expense of speech, by a CEO, should never outstrip the income of ideas. William Shakespeare in ‘Richard III’ remarks, ‘talkers are no doers’. He had great visionary insight of how the corporate world would look like in about roughly 450 years! A CEO must bear in mind that speech represents him, so it is best to be careful in expression.
A non-blabbering CEO will have skills for sharp, crisp and fast decision-making – nothing would ever be sitting in his in-tray; in fact, the agile CEO refuses that the administration department supply him ‘in and out’ trays that normally adorn the bureaucratic CEO’s table. Dust piles on both these trays, mostly. The quick decision-making CEO has the invisible ‘things to do’ tray, which invariably remains empty because no issue is delayed or procrastinated for decision.
A CEO who does not babble, will have the quality to be more accurate, precise and will always be willing to call a spade a spade. Because he values his and other’s time, he will not offer any soft or apologetic preamble when handling the most difficult situations and subjects. He wouldn’t use ‘cushy’ words or even soften arguments with them. He would not indulge in story-telling; he would not offer anecdotes to fortify his thoughts or directives. Some, a few of them, love to play the ‘parent’ in the organisation. The reaction of the staff is, “We have parents at home, so keep your ever over-flowing oceans of paternal love and care to yourself; we don’t need your do’s and don’ts for our personal lives.” A CEO should be a manager, not a parent?
The blabbering CEO will most likely (there are exceptions here!) be a soft boss, lenient on deliverables, willing to accept shifting of timelines; he will accept shoddy work output, and in the worst of circumstances, will do his colleagues work and assignments himself to achieve perfection. This is an intelligent upward delegation form in the reporting staff’s point of view, but is a horrible spectacle and a case of the CEO’s ineffectiveness in his role as a leader.
A CEO, with precision as his armour, will keep a clean distinction between performance and non-performance. He will never carry the two categories of staff in the same bogey. Because he is not a blabber, and hence not softy, he will ensure they are classified and rested separately, for all others in the organisation to know and seek inspiration for a charged performance. A pleasant attitude is not desirable when dealing with non-productivity and below par performance.
The no-nonsense CEO is respectful as a habit, not as an expediency. Let me illustrate: in the corporate universe, we have a ‘humble CEO’ when interacting with the Board but the same humble CEO acquires a persona of ‘arrogant CEO’ when he deals with his staff. The ‘chameleon CEO’ is what I call such a breed. The attitude of respect cannot be based or traded on the promise of who sits where on the hierarchical ladder.
Precision and focused attitude is not to mean that the CEO should presume himself to be a part of any LEA’s (law enforcement agencies) and behave like a police inspector or pretend to be ‘Simon Templar – The Saint’, unless he also possesses the looks of Roger Moore!
A non-blabbering CEO will find the incorporation of accountability into processes to be an easy task because he is not swayed by the popularity of his actions. A good CEO will never do his report’s job.
Since the CEO sets the culture of the organisation, he should be precise in conversation, focused on details without attendance of any bias towards the issue and he must reflect in action the importance of time, its management and effective utilisation. He will encourage how to ‘use’ time and not how to ‘kill’ time. He must remain clear about the organisation being a business house and not a charitable or donor organisation. What the heart thinks, the tongue speaks. Those CEOs who cannot speak well, will always speak much. A non-blabbering CEO would know that the flow of words and flow of wisdom do not run in the same river.
With all of the above said, the colleague was right – I am a blabbering CEO! QED.
The writer is a senior banker and freelance columnist
