Who is a micro CEO?
The simple answer is that it’s “just” a manager. This is because it’s about mindset, but not about concrete skills and responsibilities. The truth is that each manager solves a similar set of questions whether you are a first-line manager or true CEO. So, the hypothesis is each manager at each level can carry out that role.
The concept was mentioned by Andy Grove in his High output management book. “As a micro CEO, you can improve your own and your group’s performance and productivity, whether or not the rest of the company follows suit.” To my surprise, this concept is not so mentioned by other authors and practitioners. Herewith, in my opinion, the whole management expertise is about this concept. As a person, who worked with five different CEOs, I assembled my vision of such a role.
The mindset of a micro CEO spins around three items that cannot be missed
- Clients. They bring needs and pains, unlike supervisors who bring tasks. Nevertheless, supervisors can be clients. In that case, a micro CEO doesn’t wait for tasks, he or she identifies those needs and decomposes them into tasks. And it’s almost always hard to do because of the high level of ambiguity. The hardest thing is… to listen and hear clients.
- Capabilities. This topic covers a lot of things like resources, skills, performance, costs, and so on. But the most important one is the values the team can create. Capabilities and values define the needs and pains of the clients that can be resolved. It’s a market fit. Effective managers always remember that capabilities are limited and trying to extend them.
- Partners. Because of capabilities limitations, it’s impossible to get the job done alone. That is why all the departments inside the organization have to be the partners who help each other to make clients happy. It’s a perfect case. And departments management (micro CEOs) has to drive that idea. Even if the partner is another vendor. The highest point is if the client is a partner.
In general, each manager brings only two values for any kind of organization: control or money. A micro CEO brings both. It seems Bill Gates said about three things each CEO has to do: search for funding, hire the right people and sell your product/service.
Anyway, the ultimate goal is autonomous functioning that allows managing a micro CEO by metrics. It means that role takes responsibility for everything that happens within the team, department, business vertical, and so on, depending on the manager level
- Clients and their needs.
- People and their performance.
- Production and R&D.
- Operations and processes.
- Economics and financing of activities.
- Marketing and new opportunities.
- Sales and customer success.
- Legal and administration.
- Accounting and control.
- Business success and development.
- …
And it means there is no way that role can rely on the following statements
- Tell me what to do.
- It’s not my responsibility.
- The policy tells me I cannot do it.
- This department has to do it for me.
- …
It leads a micro CEO concept to the CAPI concept described by Dr. Ichak Adizes: coalesced authority, power, and influence. Managers often rely on authority and formal processes. It doesn’t work well enough in an ambiguous environment of a micro CEO. Another side is the level of ambiguity and lack of authority can be so high that people cannot stand it. This is because of a long list of the role’s interest areas. It seems that’s why this concept is not so popular.
To survive a micro CEO has to think out of the box and delegate, delegate, delegate… Actually, this kind of manager has to lead the team and him/herself through 7 levels of delegation.
Is it possible, for instance, for a first-line manager to be a micro CEO? It will be really hard to achieve. And if some person can do it, it seems that person will have own business.
Is it possible that real CEO doesn’t make the job? It happens.
Did anybody tell me about such things and concepts when I had started my management career? Unfortunately, no. Are there books and training that clarify these ideas for beginners? Not sure. Is it important to have those ideas at the start? Undoubtedly, this is what managers often miss and this concept can be the North Star for each manager.
