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CEO’s Temptations
Reviewed by Santosh Poudyal
A manager's role changes from micro to macro as she rises up the corporate ladder. Most of the managers find difficulty in performing the macro role. The five temptations of a CEO, a book by Patrick Lencioni, presents the basic principles to simplify the macro role and achieve organisational success. If we realise that every employee is a leader in her position, the book is worth reading to the employees of all levels.
Changing the focus from the management fundamentals, the book explains the pitfalls in the managerial behaviour that can act as a line between success and failure. Written to be read in a single sitting and with the self-assessment section at the end, the book can be used as a managerial help book that can easily be flipped through to avoid any of the five temptations whenever required.
Revealing the fact that almost all CEOs fail at one time or other in their tenure, the book blames one (or more) of the five temptations as the reason. These are the temptations that bewilder and trap CEOs. The author also underscores the fact that even if a CEO gets over one temptation, she may be trapped into another.
The whole book is about a tale of Andrew Brien, the CEO of Trinity Systems, San Francisco, who has held the post for a year. It's almost midnight and Andrew is in his office cabin obsessed by the next day’s dreaded board meeting. The reason: the company's results in the present fiscal year are not as good as expected. Looking for the some moral support, he plans to go home. In the train, Andrew, about to take a nap, suddenly sees an elderly janitor named Charlie and a conversation starts between them. Andrew admits that his organisation is failing but cannot pinpoint why. Andrew also realises that he is at a low point in his short tenure as CEO, a point he never expected to reach so early. Charlie explains the reason in the form of temptations that CEOs frequently get trapped into on the course of their work.
Temptation # 1: To achieve individual success over organisational success.
Achieving organisational success should be the impetus to drive a CEO, not self interest. Personal interests to drive: but only for the short run. Once they are achieved, the individual gets smug and works and worries less about the company's performance. Only when the company's success is in jeopardy, the same CEO might work harder again, not for the company, but for the protection of her image, status and ego.
Temptation #2: To become popular and liked by employees rather than hold them accountable for mistakes.
Managers don't take harsh decisions about their employees because they want their employees to like them. It is about not wanting to be rejected as a person, and judging yourself by what other people think of you.
Temptation #3: To choose certainty over clarity and ensure that decisions are correct.
Most managers fear to decide with limited information because they don't want to be wrong. They let things hang ambiguously. The result: they can't hold people accountable for things that are not clear. And without accountability, results are a matter of luck.
Temptation #4: To achieve harmony
The author says harmony is like a cancer for good decision making. Most mangers desire harmony in the workplace at the cost of healthy conflict that produces growing ideas. From the author's encouragement for productive and ideological conflict, it can be inferred that in idea is like a nut inside a hard shell, unless the shell is cracked it wont come out.
Temptation #5: To distrust subordinates to avoid vulnerability.
Trust others first before they trust you. When people trust each other, they don't fear conflict but put their ideas across. They say what they feel and don't fear vulnerability. Most managers don't like conflict because they don't trust people and they don't trust people because they are afraid of being vulnerable in their career.
Despite gaining these valuable lessons, Andrew was not there in the company three years later as shown in the Chapter 11 of the book. You may wonder why as I did. Perhaps we should ask Lencioni himself who is president of The Table Group, a San Francisco Bay Area management consulting firm and has authored several best-selling books including The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and Death by Meeting.
Happy reading
(Poudyal is pursuing MBA in Delhi University.)
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