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Charles Terry The board most definitely has its expectations. Your new team and the troops have their careers and mortgages in the forefront of their minds. And, the company has a job to do. What do you do and what do you do first? I've walked into three different turnaround situations in the software and information services space. All three companies had very different strengths and weaknesses, but at the core, systemic change was required. In this article, I'll share with you what I've learned to be the most important initial steps of taking control and putting your new company on the path to success. While you must always have strong leadership, supporting a well-communicated vision, execution is ultimately what makes the difference. During my experiences, I've learned that in order to assure successful execution, you need to immediately and systematically focus on three key roles within the executive team:
What are my expectations for an intimately engaged CFO? To successfully lead the company down a new road, I found it critical to have a CFO who can go beyond the financials and can track vital metrics that provide deep understanding of every nuance of change and iteration in the company's business model. The entire management team must thoroughly understand the impact of any change to pricing, packaging, comp plans, distribution channels, supplier relationships, and etc.. Without this intense understanding and collaboration, dramatic positive change will be difficult to implement. Sales managers must be revenue production managers. The VP of Sales must manage almost exclusively by the numbers (number of reps, contacts, leads, prospects, proposals, closes and of course revenue). Too often the VP of Sales continues to think like a sales person: one deal at a time instead of like a revenue production manager. The sales manager's job is to maximize the productivity of the sales organization and to accurately project that productivity. If instead, they manage deals and personalities, they will continually struggle to be in sync with the CFO and the CEO. I want a VP of Sales that continually improves the sales team's productivity and produces forecasts that the CFO and I can trust. Product management connects the vision to the entire organization. PM's charter is to orchestrate the implementation of your vision by critically listening to the market, communicating the market's needs to product development, and supporting sales and marketing. Empowerment direct from the CEO of this role is critical. Without empowerment each department will operate in their own silos, the vision will go unseen, sales will sell what the company doesn't or will never have and development will build what moves them. Without effective product management, it doesn't matter if the emperor has clothes or not! I empower this department by being actively involved and at times by being Chief Product Manager. For a successful breakout or turnaround, all three of these positions must be "A" players and must work collaboratively; otherwise the vision is at risk. While each role is critical, without exception, I establish the CFO role on my team first. It sets the tone for performance and metrics, and gives me a strong partner for managing and implementing change. Charles Terry of CWT Group (www.cwtgroup.net) offers interim CXO services including: strategic planning, product management and "go to market" design and execution. Most recently Terry was CEO of Comtex News Network, a company he grew from $3 million to $16 million. He can be contacted at CWTerry@comcast.net. |
