In his Audible book, High Growth Handbook, Elad Gill talks about an Executive in a team, being able to see and execute about 6-18 months into the future, and that the stronger exec is doing things that affect the next 18 months, while your good exec is working on the next 6 months.

This really jumped out at me, from a couple of angles not least of all the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) one which presses companies and teams to plan for the next 3-6 months and effectively their year ahead at least.

I think this a Litmus test for the effectiveness of your entire Executive team, and this would include startups that are scaling fast but also well established Tech companies that have high growth expectations from their board and shareholders.

The test is this, what proportion of the exec time is consumed with Operations vs Execution of Strategy that affects the next 6-18 months.

As per the comments and interviews in the book, if your exec team are not doing things that are about the next 6-18 months, ie getting the product and people changes in place you need, driving sales for that time period, and predicting other things that will be need, then they are NOT being an effective executive team.

This of course comes back to Sales, the sales operations team are looking at this quarter and maybe the next, but the entire exec need to be looking at the next year already and what needs to be in place to achieve those targets.

It’s a common trap for exec teams to get dragged down into day to day operations that are really about today and next week at best, and if its more than 50% of their time, I would say its a flag to get in more good management to take away that noise.

It’s hard for founders and long time management that move into executive roles to flip away from the noise of management and operations to look further into the future to see what plans and strategies must be put in place for high growth to occur.

If you are just ticking along in a good business, with the same product and people, then you don’t need leadership or an exec to look into the future and make plans. But if you’re in Tech or any modern business with aggressive growth needs then check in on your exec ratio of Operations to Strategy and execution of that Strategy.

There is numerous supporting collateral for aligning vision with growth as below.

https://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/guiding-growth-how-vision-keeps-companies-on-course

 

See below for the links to the Audible book by Elad Gill and also some interviews that cover parts of the book that you can listen to for free.

Audible Book Link Here

 

Listen Notes Covers Key Chapters Here

  • 00:32:14 – The Sheryl Sandberg effect and when CEOs should step aside

 

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