
CEOs don't steer - sharpn
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/11/09/ceos-dont-steer/
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token_throwaway
TL;DR: Unlike other types of leaders (eg. Presidents), good CEOs consistently
set destinations, and align new people towards those destinations, but don't
micromanage the means by which their team gets there. Except for some times,
when they have to.

This was horribly written. Succinctness is a virtue.

~~~
tome
That's not an accurate summary at all. The message of the article is that good
CEOs set a _direction_ and then act as an immutable rudder with the aim of
ensuring that the organisation stays pointed in that direction.

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hammock
Doesn't a rudder...steer?

~~~
tome
Ah, good question. The point is not that the CEO doesn't make any changes but
that he/she makes changes to keep the overall direction constant!

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heavenlyblue
The issue with supposedly well-written articles like this one is the fact that
I need to go through literally 4 paragraphs repeating the same thing as a
different metaphor. Just look at this:

>>> CEOs are orientation locks. The opposite of steering is orientation
locking. To enforce Newton’s first law, the inertia one, on dancing human
systems inclined to violate it. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t inertia
that’s the problem for most companies, it is lack of sufficient inertia in the
right direction. Enough to punch through any resistance that might be
encountered. And the reason they lack the inertia is that CEOs aren’t steady
enough in their jobs as orientation locks, providing a steady True North
signal to everybody else doing more local kinds of steering work.

>>> The primary CEO function, and the trait the good ones are selected for, is
to provide the gyroscopic stability required to keep a company vectored in the
chosen direction. They end up in the jobs they do because they counterbalance
an organization’s natural tendency towards distraction, ADD and momentum
dissipation. A typical company is a wandering, wobbling hive mind, liable to
spend all its time chasing distractions if you let it, before dissolving into
a bunch of clever tweets about crappy prototypes.

>>> As the orientation lock, the CEO becomes the human locus where momentum
compounds; the psychological platform others build on. They are the steward of
whatever snowballing network effect or unleashed natural wealth-creating
dynamic is the company’s raison d’être. Their primary job, and ideally their
only one, is to protect and feed that dynamic, and get everything else out of
the way.

>>> Every act of steering leaks or drains at least a small amount of momentum,
no matter where in the company it happens. But steering at the CEO locus truly
hemorrhages momentum, creating serious, possibly existential, vulnerabilities.
Because by definition there are no systems for doing it well. If there’s a
system, it would have kicked in before things got to CEO level. Worse,
steering at CEO level might actually kill whatever compound-interest dynamic
is driving the whole show, killing not just live momentum, but its source of
renewal and growth.

~~~
bjterry
He is emulating the style of CEO books. It's intentional that it's repetitive.
As he says:

> In case it wasn’t obvious, this post has been something of a parody of the
> business writing form I’m talking about.

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megaman22
Kind of funny that this was right next to this item[1] "Human sperm steer with
second harmonics of the flagellar beat". Apparently one regresses in abilities
over time... \s

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15666714](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15666714)

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ealexhudson
Doesn't ring true for me at all. If any C-suite role is about ensuring
direction doesn't change, that's surely the COO.

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gopher2
Sooo, what is "steering" actually? Like, what?

