I work with private equity sponsors and CEOs of European knowledge and workflow businesses, mostly in education. Sometimes it’s during due diligence. Sometimes it’s post-deal, as a non-executive director, adviser or mentor. The businesses differ, but some of the same questions keep coming up.
1. Which initiatives will actually create value?
CEOs are usually optimistic entrepreneurs who see opportunities everywhere. When you get into a company, you sometimes find a great number of initiatives, but little detail behind them and no clear view of which will make a difference. Which ones could really grow revenue, profit or the value of the business? How big is each opportunity? How are we going to make it happen? Often, if you can structure the plan around something like 5–10 core initiatives, you can find a workable way to create value and maintain the focus needed to drive execution. One is probably too risky. 100 is La La Land.
2. Do we have the team for the next stage?
The people who built the company have often done something remarkable. But running a larger, international business under new ownership can ask something different of them. They may still be brilliant but no longer be playing the game at which they excel.
Making changes to the team is often one of the hardest things a CEO has to do, especially when the person is a co-founder or an old friend.
Dealing with the non-performing jerk is easy, and it has usually happened already. The hard case is the person with the great attitude and work ethic, the one you play tennis with. They were a superb HR director in a small family-owned business. Now they are out of their depth in a larger international company owned by private equity.
A wrong hire in the local team hurts, but you typically see it and fix it quickly. A wrong leader in a new market can cost so much time that the market opportunity is simply lost to the investor.
3. How will we know whether it’s working?
Some businesses report a great deal and still aren’t on the right track. Many years ago, I received more than 1,000 pages of pre-reading for a regular monthly meeting. I may have written 100 of them myself and that was in the the B.C. era (Before Claude). The number of slides created and read was not a very good KPI for that particular business. Lesson learned.
A former colleague once told me that he had worked at a company where he spent a day each month writing a management report but suspected the leadership didn’t actually read it. So one month he wrote: “This month I lost all my customers to our main competitor.” There was no reaction. The month after, he stopped writing the report. Nobody noticed that either.
A measure or report is useful if it leads someone to act differently, and if it tells them early enough to change course. If an international expansion is behind plan, is the problem the market, the proposition, the sales approach or the person leading it?
4. What happens when it isn’t working?
Sooner or later something isn’t. What matters is whether people can say so. Agree who owns each initiative. Make the goals as clear as possible, review the progress rigorously and honestly and unblock the things that are standing in the way. It’s not always pretty and clean work, it’s messy and unpredictable and can be frustrating. You need to show some grit. Decide when to invest more, when to change the approach and when to stop.
How I can help you depends on the situation. Sometimes it’s knowledge of a market or experience of a situation the team hasn’t faced before. Sometimes a capable CEO simply needs someone who will listen, challenge an assumption and help them work out what they think.
If that sounds useful, get in touch.
