Dick Cross - 60-Minute CEO. Mastering Leadership an Hour at a Time

First published by Bibliomotion, Inc.

39 Harvard Street

Brookline, MA 02445

Tel: 617-934-2427

www.bibliomotion.com

Copyright 2014 by Dick Cross

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cross, Dick.

60-minute CEO : the fast track to top leadership / Dick Cross.

pages cm

Summary: Cross offers executives the fast track to the top leadership position, focusing on two aspects: thinking and character. While 60 minutes may seem like a quick fix, three 60-minute sessions a week devoted solely to considering your business and your role as leader are crucial to business and leadership successand the payoff is proven Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-62956-009-0 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-62956-010-6 (ebook) ISBN 978-1-62956-011-3 (enhanced ebook)

1. Leadership. 2. Management. I. Title. II. Title: Sixty minute CEO.

HD57.7.C764 2014

658.4'2dc23

2014003387

To loves of my life. my bride and our daughters, Jenny, Kate and Hannah

In the greatest sense this book is not mine. Rather, it is a collection of ideas either given to me directly, or that others placed me in positions to discover on my own, over three decades.

Together these people are all friends and loved ones.

Sadly deceased, Jack Glover, emeritus Lovett-Learned Professor at Harvard Business School, opened my thinking to an intersection between a young designers mind and business strategy. Ross Arnold, founder and Managing Partner of Quest Capital, in Atlanta gave me my first and second posts as CEO of underperforming companies. My dear friend Larry Williams, founder and Managing Partner of The Breckenridge Group then followed with a suite of assignments, including my first post at the top of a public company. My best friend from business school, Peter Lamm, then invited me into the newly formed Fenway Partners private equity firm in New York, and entrusted me with a portfolio of seven companies most of which I ran at one time or another. Then Doug Diamond, Managing Partner at Equity South, placed me in the top spot at CARSTAR, Inc. And most recently, Bob Egan and Rodney Eshelman invited me to join Alston Capital Partners and installed me as CEO of that funds first acquisition.

Along the way, in the fall of 2010, my friend and accountant Tom Gerety introduced me to Jill Friedlander and Erika Heilman, who signed me as what I will always consider their against-the-odds first author in what blossomed into a powerhouse portfolio of thought leadership books. With a jaw-dropping stable of authors, who, uncharacteristically and unreservedly, love and know they are overwhelmingly blessed to be under the wings of their publisher.

And most importantly, my bride of four decades and my glorious daughters, Kate and Hannah. Who unselfishly supported a life of maniacal, missionary travel to save businesses, and who held me mercifully to a promise always to be home for weekends.

Thank you for your Lovethe greatest gift of all!

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain.

I am pleased today to welcome you aboard our Transformation Airlines flight from Mediocre Airport in Averageville to Exemplary Field in the City of Exceptional.

Todays flight will take us over the peak of Too Tall to Climb Mountain and across the far reaches of the Cant Risk It Valley. As we reach our midpoint, youll be able to see the Plains of Complacency passing beneath us. After that well pick up the Zealous Followership Tailwinds to speed us to our destination.

If there is anything that our flight crew can do to make your journey more comfortable, please dont hesitate to ring the overhead bell. It is connected directly to dickcross@crosspartnership.com, where we are waiting at your service.

We sincerely hope you enjoy your flight. The weather looks good. And after just a few preflight procedures, well be under way.

T hese are the facts about how to be great in the Job at the Top. But theyre not what most people think.

• Running a business, and doing it extraordinarily well, isnt a full-time job.

• Instead, running a business is an explicit skill that takes dedicated, assiduous thought, and conditioning, and this skill is different from the ones needed for every other job in the company.

• Its easy to learn and fun to do, but its not taught anywhere except in this book.

• Therefore, many CEOs spend most of their time doing things that have little to do with their highest responsibility, which is running their companies.

• And so they miss the greatest contributions they could possibly make.

On only the rarest of occasions has anyone questioned the following proclamation, which I make at the beginning of most speaking engagements. I believe it without reservation:

The single greatest determinant of business success is the Job at the Top nothing else even comes close!

Audiences nod thoughtfully, indicating solemn understanding and alignment with what seems to them a near-spiritual truth. What comes next is curious, and perhaps equally predictable. Nonetheless, its a surprise to everyone else in the room, because it exposes a grand and pervasive charade. And it catches them all in their complicity.

A simple, follow-up question triggers the moment. Its only six words, only one with more than a single syllable.

How do you run a business?

No audience has ever offered a response. From the podium I see chins snap up and eyes pop wide in surprise. Then theres an awkward pause. Attention shifts from me as people look at their shoes, befuddled.

I call this The Greatest Question Never Asked. And when I ask individuals rather than audiences, I get the same two reactions. One is incredulity, disbelief that anyone would have the audacity to ask a stranger such a thing. As if Id asked, How did life start? or, What is love?

The other reaction is offense. This reaction is typified by the guy whose whole face squinches around the narrow slits his eyes have become. His posture is grim as he sits expressionless behind crossed arms. But then, a light goes off! Reaching clumsily for his wallet, he steps forward. And with relief, he pushes a business card triumphantly into my face: See, it says it right here CEO. I know how to do that job!

The fact is that few of us, even those whove been at it a long time and have generated great results, can explain how we do the Job at the Top.

But I can. Not because Im any smarter than anyone else, but because its been my conscious obsession over two and a half decades. Im passionate about running companies and teaching others how to do it. This obsession has even exceeded my interest in generating exceptional financial results. Fortunately, those results have always followed.

The next chapter takes a hard look at the customs we take for granted as truths about how to do the Job at the Top. These are things we seldom even consider questioning. But theyre also things that we know arent getting the job done. The chapter addresses directly, not obliquely, challenges we seldom discuss, except in confidence with others who are facing situations like our own: how to motivate our teams to higher achievement; how to move our businesses forward at the pace and with the performance weve committed to. opens you up to questioning the ideals and the models weve elevated to the status of natural law in running our organizations.