Tag: executive responsibilities

The Late Robb Stark, CEO of House Stark


Robb-Stark Let me say first that I mourn the death of Robb and Catelyn Stark just like the rest of the Game of Thrones fandom.  Yet, the sadness doesn't cloud my judgement; it doesn't prevent me from fully grasping the ironclad logic of good storytelling.  I am fully aware that the tragic events of the Red Wedding were not written for the sake of shock and gore.  They were consequences of the characters' actions and motivations, consistent with the specific circumstances and forces at play.  They had a lot to do with matters of executive responsibility, obligations of power,  burdens of leadership, i.e. with the "weight of the crown."  As the Bard said, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." (Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, scene 1, 31).       

To those who read CFO Techniques I would like to offer my apologies for using the analogy from The King's Speech here again.  It's just that the Brits, who's been living under monarchy for over 1500 years, understand this royal-duty business better than anybody.  (Also, they seem to speak the same language as the Seven Kingdoms' folks.)  So, in the movie, Prince Albert (Colin Firth) tells King George V (Michael Gambon), "Father, we are not a family, we are a firm." And the king replies, "We are the oldest, most successful corporation in the world and sitting on thrones is our business."

Yes, ruling a nation is a family business, and that makes a king the Chief Executive Officer of his land and his people.  And in this position, just as it is in any company, he is responsible for

  • strategic development – expansion, contraction, restructuring, hostile takeovers,
  • foreign policies  – establishing or severing connections with external parties, forming partnerships and alliances,
  • tactical decisions – laws, decrees, rules, governing appointments, organizational infrastructure,
  • fiscal adequacy – financing day-to-day operations and all those strategic moves,
  • economic balance – most important for prevention of revolts, backstabbing moves of dissatisfied courtiers, and the fleeting of labor,
  • human relations – the adoration and support of one's subjects doesn't hurt.    

In fact, in George R. R. Martin's world, a king's enterprising is very entrepreneurial, very hands-on.  Nothing like the make-believe leadership we see in the dangerously large governing bodies of contemporary conglomerates/countries.  In the Seven Kingdoms, a true leader cannot be a mere token sitting on a throne (in King's Landing they have Joffrey for that, while Tywin rules).  A ruler's job requires a lot of personal involvement and micromanagement: from weaving intricate intrigues to beheading those you condemned; from charging in front of your troops to skinning a damn large deer – the one with the executive power cannot avoid rolling up the sleeves and getting his/her hands dirty.  

Most importantly, the king must take personal responsibility for doing the right thing by his nation.  He'd better have his priorities straight: the crown is so heavy because the burden of authority calls for selflessness and sacrifices.  Those few business owners that earned my personal respect over the years concentrated all their efforts on the prosperity and success of their companies.  They were acutely aware that business is nothing if not a continuous struggle for survival. 

So, what about Robb Stark?  How did he do as a CEO?  Not very well, I'm afraid.  He was like one of those young rich boys, who inherited his father's business too early due to an untimely death – full of great potential, brilliant ideas, and… illusions.  The childish sense of invincibility has not yet evaporated from his body.  He thought he could break and rebuild the word any way he wanted.  And so, he went and violated the millenia-old custom of building political alliances through marriages: he broke off his engagement with Lord Walder Frey's daughter.  His Love was above any rules.  How beautiful! 

How cheeky and irresponsible!  It was an unforgivable insult to House Frey.  It was disrespectful to the memory of his father who made an arrangement and himself inherited Catelyn as a bride after his older brother's death.  And, as far as the well-being of his land, his subjects, and his mission are concerned, it was plain reckless.  In the business environment, this would be the equivalent of breaking contractual obligations with your commercial partners or violating the terms of your financing agreements.  Actions of this kind result in companies loosing their reputation, market share, procurement resources, creditability, funding, and eventually going bankrupt, i.e. die.

As many young entrepreneurs, Robb Stark was a person of extremes: he was quick to break rules practically written in stone, yet many of his actions were marred by poor, hesitant decision-making.   Whether due to inexperience or a lack of talent for long-term strategic thinking (his military campaign proved him to be a good tactician), he was never quite sure what was the right thing to do.  It's bizarre, really: sometimes he neither followed the solid logic presented to him by his advisers, nor did he go with his own gut.  The foolish execution of Lord Rickard Karstark, which resulted in a loss of a huge chunk of allied troops is an obvious example.

I've been forever writing and talking about psycho-profiling as a key management skill.  One simply cannot succeed without it.  Robb's inability to read people and their motivations might be the main reason for his downfall.  What made him think that old Lord Frey will forgive the insult and tolerate Robb's wife being shoved into his face in his own home?  How could he forget that you cannot trust anybody and must always be on alert for betrayal?  If we think rationally about it, the probability of retaliation was very high.

In contrast, there is a reason why a few smart people reluctantly realize that Tyrion Lannister is King's Landing's only hope.  Not only that he is sharp, brave, incisive, and fair, but he also understands that if one wants that family business of ruling kingdoms to be successful, he must be ready to forsake a thing or two, including personal happiness.

It's great to find out that I'm not the only one who saw the parallels between the demise of Robb Stark and the small-business leadership.  The article below was prompted by TypePad as a related post.

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CFO Folklore: Mortal Kombat – CEO vs. Outlook, FIGHT!


MK 3I am the biggest advocate of an entrepreneurial CEO's freedom from any administrative, technological, and infrastructural minutiae.  They must not busy themselves with making their own reports or calculations in Excel, devising organizational routines, catering to bankers' demands, nurturing relationships with customers, etc.  They have functional executives and senior management for that – CFOs, COOs, CIOs, Controllers, Sales VPs, etc. 

An effectual CEO should be focused almost exclusively on the strategic development of the business and the tactical decisions pertaining to the company's survival and prosperity.  Therefore, he may be, but  doesn't need to be an Excel pro, an IT geek (unless, of course, that's the business), a bullshitting ace, or a financing maverick.  He must be a visionary – that's all.  I stated my position on this issue multiple times and dedicated an entire post to the defense of CEO's limited scope of responsibilities.  I even wrote about it in CFO Techniques.      

I have to say, though, when it comes to technology, for most CEOs outside of the high-tech industry, it's not even the result of division of labor -there's some sort of a pervasive impairment.  Most business owners I know personally or have heard about from other people are not very technologically advanced, to put it mildly. 

There are CEOs who call for help every time they need to insert a column in a table; are incapable of  logging onto a network; and wouldn't touch scanners even if they stand right on their desks.  And that's Ok.  As I said, they don't have to trouble their valuable heads with these things as long as they attend to their primary job and manage to be brilliant at it. 

However, we do live in the second decade of the 21st century and some level of sophistication in the ways of contemporary communication is simply required.  It has nothing to do with being a small business owner, a big-time CEO, or The President.  This is one area of technological advancement, where everyone at a certain point had to overcome their innate resistance to novelties and get on with the program.  Radio, telegraph, telephone, video transmission, cellular connection, etc. – they have simply become mundane tools of every-day existence.   

Nowadays, using electronics as a means of organizing your life and exchanging information is as elementary as turning the pages of an old-fashioned desktop calendar.  And if you don't know how to do it, it makes you look silly and inadequate; it's simply unbecoming for a business leader. 

I currently have a client who comes to the office on Saturdays and Sundays because he cannot follow instructions on how to access his business emails remotely or push them through his iPhone.  His partners, employees, and commercial associates laugh about it behind his back.  It's likely that these inadequacies have an impact on their overall attitudes towards this business owner.

But I am particularly annoyed with those CEOs who are not able to utilize Outlook beyond the most primitive actions of receiving and sending emails.  I mean, for businesses operating in the PC environment, the program has become one of the most vital cross-functional tools since 1997!

I am currently exposed to one of these.  At this point I've already resigned myself to the sad fact that she will never learn how to accept or reject meeting invitations.  I wouldn't even dream of her creating one herself.  She will never get rid of her humongous appointment book, which, due to its instrumental limitations, is incapable of reminding her of important events or tasks at hand.  However, emails are her life, she lives and breathes them.  Wouldn't she treat them with proper care?  Guess again.

The other day she comes over to my office and asks if I still have "that email about…" (the subject matter is irrelevant).  Of course, I do.  She is standing right next to me looking at my screen, prepared to read the email with me when I find it.  I switch to Outlook, which is opened, as always, on the Inbox.  There are maybe 10 emails there, which arrived in the last 30 minutes.  "Where are all the emails?!" she is utterly surprised, "I keep all important emails.  I've got hundreds of them."  "So do I," I reply, "But not in the Inbox, of course."  I slide to my Navigation Pane, go straight to one of my 30 subject folders.

She is not stupid and she is a pretty good CEO.  She understands the importance of time-saving tools.  But she is too proud.  She will not ask me or any of her employees how to do it.  And so, she continues searching through hundreds of messages in her Inbox.