Launching a business is hard. Sustaining it is even harder, and sustaining growth is harder still. As a company grows, team members tend to fall into two broad categories with a lot of shades of gray in between. On one end of the spectrum are those for whom the job is just a job, while at the other end are those who are dedicated to the business and willing to do whatever it takes to see it succeed. We expect commitment to be directly related to monetary reward, and there is certainly a correlation, but it is surprising how many engaged and dedicated team members are in mundane modestly compensated positions, and how many well compensated senior contributors are only in it for a paycheck and a nine to five job.
The most devastating situation is when a member of the senior executive team professes commitment but turns out to only be in it for a job. As a CEO, you count on your executive team to share your passion, and you expect them to be your partners to lead the company to fame and glory, but sometimes, it is just a paycheck. It is important for the CEO to know which camp their key execs fall into - passion or paycheck. One of the worst days for a CEO is when a trusted lieutenant surprises you by announcing they are departing for another job. I often quote Andy Grove of Intel saying that “only the paranoid survive,” but some things you just count on and do not expect to need to keep looking over your shoulder to confirm. The loyalty and commitment of senior executive team members is one of those safe anchors, which is why it is so rattling when you are surprised by an exit. Often there is a sense of betrayal that accompanies the need for crisis management. The more senior the executive, the bigger the hole you will need to fill.
We want senior executives to be ambitious, and we want them to have fulfilling careers, but we also need to be aware of the passion or paycheck dichotomy. We need a sense for how an executive will react when a recruiter calls. An executive who rose through the ranks to a position of leadership reporting to the CEO is clearly someone with ambition. Unless the CEO plans to retire sometime soon, further career advancement for members of the executive team may be somewhat limited. Executive jobs get bigger as the company gets bigger, and maybe there are opportunities for advancement, but there is only one CEO (typically), and an executive with an ambition of becoming a CEO will sooner or later look outside the company. Not all execs aspire to the CEO role, and it is just as important to understand what makes them tick. Often the CFO or the CTO career path is more focused on their craft than on obtaining a CEO position. Restlessness for these executives may be triggered by boredom or desire to tackle bigger harder problems than the company can offer. Understanding the potential motivations, empowers a CEO to be mentally prepared for the inevitable, but more importantly it opens the door to an honest working relationship where the CEO works with each executive to prepare them and mentor them to achieve their goals, in exchange for fair warning when the recruiters come calling.
When a departure is a surprise, it is a violation of trust and commitment. If you have a face-to-face discussion about commitment and the executive looks you in the eye and tells you they are totally dedicated to seeing the company through and they are not going anywhere, you tend to believe them. If they come back weeks or months later and announce they are leaving, that is when it truly hurts. It triggers a moment of introspection about what you could have done differently, or how you could have seen the signs or anticipated the defection. Sometimes, there was no way to predict it, and the executive was just disingenuous when they professed commitment. However, often the handwriting was on the wall and you just overlooked it, or you created an environment that closed off the career conversation.
In the context of being ever vigilant and paranoid, as a leader you cannot take for granted that everyone shares your commitment. You need to create a safe space for your team members to express their needs and wants so that you can hear the message and see the writing on the wall. In a healthy relationship you can have an honest adult conversation about the path forward, and at least be prepared for the potential change to come. It is never easy to lose a key person, but when the individual does not feel an imperative to be secretive about their career goals and intentions there can be an open dialog about how to move forward. The key to avoiding a surprise termination is to maintain an open dialog and willingness to truly listen and look for the signs of discontent.
Thinking more broadly about the entire employee base, it can be very informative and beneficial to challenge every manager in the company to take a step back for introspection about their team, themselves, and the company as a whole. Ask managers to go beyond routine employee evaluations and performance reviews, and truly listen to their team members. Learn about what motivates each member and how the company can create an environment that sparks their engagement. Even a small shift in the engagement equation can have an outsized positive impact on the business. Challenge mangers to shift the equation, and find the spark.