Is my new CEO professionalising the company or killing our hunger for growth?

Dear Aunty B,

We are growing very fast and things got a bit out of control last year. I took your advice and hired ahead of myself. We took a guy from a large corporate and made him CFO.

It has been a nightmare. He is not driven to get the growth we need, he is risk adverse and he is used to corporate support, expense accounts and all the trappings. So now our costs have gone up, staff are confused about the direction and everything takes longer.

When I try to raise this with him he says he is doing what I brought him in to do. Is he professionalising the company or bringing the whole show to a stop? And how do I get him to understand our culture and plans for growth?

Confused CEO

Dear Confused CEO,

Okay, let’s prise this apart. And let’s start with the bus. Remember our aim? To get the right people up those three steps onto the bus and enjoy the ride of a lifetime together. Yes, the bus screeches around corners, honks its horn too loudly, makes wrong turns, speeds excessively, u-turns dramatically and hits the brakes regularly. But everyone on the bus knows where it is going and trusts everyone else to play their part and that in the end the bus will get to wherever the hell it is going.

Then you throw a spanner in the engine. (The CFO, dummy!) So what happens? Actually I have no idea, having no ability whatsoever to hit a fast moving target with a spanner.

But in a nutshell, you have not only hired the wrong person to get on the bus, you have buggered up your engine. The alarm bells? That your staff are confused about the direction.

Now it might have felt like things were out of control before Hot Shot CFO came along. But we all know who really drives the bus and that is our wonderful staff. So if your staff don’t know where you are going, your bus is so out of control that your mission-critical-alarm -bell-dash-board should have more lights flashing than an arresting patient in ICU.

So here is what you do. Sit him down and explain that he is not in the typical large company anymore. He is not on some slow moving elevator in a boring shopping centre going up and going down and repeating the same thing day after day and staying in the same spot. He has stepped into a super doper hotted up bus on steroids. Now maybe all the plugs aren’t in the right place and the repairs are done a little too quickly and corners are taken a little too fast but that is how fast growing companies operate.

So tell him you are not stopping the bus while he tinkers with the engine. His job is to stay on the bus and professionalise it while the thing runs full pelt into its future. Help him to understand he is risk adverse and that while he can put a professional filter on things, his job is not to put roadblocks in the way. Help him to see how successful you have been by taking risks and build his confidence in you and your people.

Finally tell him that it is essential he changes and that if he can’t take the speed, he needs to get off the bus.

Good luck!
Your Aunty B