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Ask HN: How to persuade the CEO to remain focus on his role

4 points by alanmorph ↗ HN
Hello HN,

The CEO at my startup is a great guy with solid salesmanship and communication skill.

However he's neglecting his role of making contracts and relationships with 3rd parties and is discretely "communicating" with interns to produce outputs that won't be needed for the next three months.

Thing is he does not notify me, who will use those output for the product. And he does not have technical background or previous experience with the industry either.

What should I do, as the main tech guy, to make him be transparent with his "suggestion"?

6 comments

[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 20.8 ms ] thread
MichaelCrawford
he should not be the CEO.

I suggest that you make your concerns known to the board of directors; among the reasons we have director boards is so they can correct problems like this.

There is some possibility he would be suitable for some other position at your company.

jtfairbank
That's a bit harsh. Depending on company size an maturity, maybe just have a conversation about it with him? He might not even realize that he's stepping on your toes or distracting the interns, esp. if he's not technical.
sebastianconcpt
That's completely premature, you didn't even suggested they should talk first so they learn together what they need now and mature their relationship, instead, you suggested that who ask should jump to big guns in a way that can potentially change the path of that startup forever.

I suggest nobody should do bold blind suggestions nor follow them.

philjr
There's no right answer to this problem as all the nuances are situational. It's difficult to assess the situation without understanding the context but the first question I'd have is are you one "hop" from the ceo .... I.e. Do you report directly to him or do you have the relationship with him to tackle this directly.

That's the starting point. If you two are close (I don't mean holidays with each other's families close - close in terms of you working together) then you need to start establishing regular communication channels. Setup a weekly meeting and make sure that you represent what you need from him to do your job.

Regular communication is the key part of this and then tackle these issues head on with the Ceo. Most people I find struggling with these types of situations (particularly men) let this stuff boil and boil and then boil over one day where they get annoyed or angry and feel like they've now "communicated" the problem to the individual. It may take weeks to help him understand if there is behaviour that is detrimental to the business. Set that expectation with yourself first and be patient with how you communicate. First part of that is discovery... Don't accuse, just ask questions. If you've built yourself up in to an annoyed state because of this then calm down first before entering in to these conversations. Most people are not able to conceal how they feel so the probing questions come across as accusatory both in tone and language.

All of that being said, if there is behaviour that needs to be corrected, communicate that to him clearly after you're sure you've exhausted the discovery route.

My pop manager diagnosis here is that if you're coming on to an Internet forum to ask for advice then you're not communicating enough with your colleague (ignore he's the ceo)

If you're not high enough in the food chain to make that representation then there's precious little you can do apart from trying to build a relationship to have that communication.

tixocloud
It's important to have a conversation to iron out these issues. Have a dialogue with him. Be frank but also be open to listening to his side of the story - why does he do what he does? How does he feel about his role and responsibilities?

You may see him as neglecting his role building relationships but he may see his role as getting people to build stuff.

Either way, the open communication will help you get down to the root cause and really determine if he's the guy to go to battle with or if you need to replace him.

JSeymourATL
> How to persuade the CEO to remain focus on his role...

This is a classic instance of Managing Up. Stuart Diamond has some solid advice in this area; turn every instance of potential conflict into an instance of advisement. He often uses a disarmingly simple conversation starter "Are you happy?"

Recommend his book. Here's his presentation @ Google; which covers a lot of the content > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOZo6Lx70ok