4 ms·

There is a video of Steve Jobs promoting an accountant or such to C-level and she tells how she grew into the job. Why is it necessary to hire external C-level

There is a video of Steve Jobs promoting an accountant or such to C-level and she tells how she grew into the job. Why is it necessary to hire external C-levels? What do they bring to the table? Why not promote leaders from within? If you stumble upon an exceptional person who could improve the company it's still possible to hire them.

zeruch 4y ago
"What do they bring to the table? Why not promote leaders from within?" Both carry risks: the former can cataclysmically change internal culture and make a cascade of errors rapidly (usually during the idiotic 'empire building' phase many start from), the latter can sometimes be pushed up on questionable grounds and do much the same (e.g. worked for a firm where the CRO left abruptly after 18 months and because executive search was so expensive and lengthy, opted to promote the head of a region to CRO, who proved to be at best a mediocre sales leader in terms of actual revenue, but proved perpetually toxic to everything they touched. An almost cartoonishly corpulent and caustic incompetent from central casting. When he was regional lead he was problematic but contained, but when promoted turned into a total 'Enfant terrible')
- solarmist 4y ago
  If he was already problematic then why the would you give him more power? This sounds like they got what anyone should’ve expected. Anyone is not better than no one.
  - zeruch 4y ago
    I never got a distinctly good answer on that, but the rubric was that the number one pick was not willing to relocate to corporate HQ and was content performing quite well in their lane (a rare case of astute self-awareness, but he was ultimately ousted by the new CRO because he only saw him as competition), and the number two choice was already in range and as I said, previously contained...maybe they thought he'd "grow into the role"?
TrackerFF 4y ago
The arguments you often hear are: - new set of eyes / people that aren’t colored by biases from previous experiences - external networks and resources - right background and experience for the task Etc.
PeterisP 4y ago
One aspect is that companies can grow much faster than people do. Someone who's decent at managing 5 people will need many years of experience to become capable at properly managing 500 people, and a company can grow to needing such a manager much faster than that. Just as you can't expect a skilled individual contributor to be able to instantly become a good manager (they can, but that's a different skillset that needs both learning and practice which will take some time), so if you suddenly need a bunch of good managers now then you have to hire them instead of promoting your contributors; and in the same manner you can't expect a skilled team-lead to become a good CxO in a large organization (the difference in the daily work and skillset is comparable to that of IC to manager), so if you suddenly need CxOs to become a larger organization from a small one, it's exceedingly likely that none of your managers are qualified at the moment - they might become qualified with, say, two years of personal growth if targeted at that, but a fast growing company likely can't wait those two years and need a CxO that can start doing these things properly now.

zeruch 4y ago

"What do they bring to the table? Why not promote leaders from within?" Both carry risks: the former can cataclysmically change internal culture and make a cascade of errors rapidly (usually during the idiotic 'empire building' phase many start from), the latter can sometimes be pushed up on questionable grounds and do much the same (e.g. worked for a firm where the CRO left abruptly after 18 months and because executive search was so expensive and lengthy, opted to promote the head of a region to CRO, who proved to be at best a mediocre sales leader in terms of actual revenue, but proved perpetually toxic to everything they touched. An almost cartoonishly corpulent and caustic incompetent from central casting. When he was regional lead he was problematic but contained, but when promoted turned into a total 'Enfant terrible')

solarmist 4y ago
If he was already problematic then why the would you give him more power? This sounds like they got what anyone should’ve expected. Anyone is not better than no one.
- zeruch 4y ago
  I never got a distinctly good answer on that, but the rubric was that the number one pick was not willing to relocate to corporate HQ and was content performing quite well in their lane (a rare case of astute self-awareness, but he was ultimately ousted by the new CRO because he only saw him as competition), and the number two choice was already in range and as I said, previously contained...maybe they thought he'd "grow into the role"?

TrackerFF 4y ago

The arguments you often hear are: - new set of eyes / people that aren’t colored by biases from previous experiences - external networks and resources - right background and experience for the task Etc.

PeterisP 4y ago

One aspect is that companies can grow much faster than people do. Someone who's decent at managing 5 people will need many years of experience to become capable at properly managing 500 people, and a company can grow to needing such a manager much faster than that. Just as you can't expect a skilled individual contributor to be able to instantly become a good manager (they can, but that's a different skillset that needs both learning and practice which will take some time), so if you suddenly need a bunch of good managers now then you have to hire them instead of promoting your contributors; and in the same manner you can't expect a skilled team-lead to become a good CxO in a large organization (the difference in the daily work and skillset is comparable to that of IC to manager), so if you suddenly need CxOs to become a larger organization from a small one, it's exceedingly likely that none of your managers are qualified at the moment - they might become qualified with, say, two years of personal growth if targeted at that, but a fast growing company likely can't wait those two years and need a CxO that can start doing these things properly now.