What’s the Secret Sauce that CEO’s really value?

What’s the secret sauce that CEO’s really value?

I’m often asked to give advice to ambitious folks at an early stage in building their career. The questions come in all shapes and sizes, but are usually along the lines of, ‘how did you ‘make it’ … what do I need to do?’ It’s difficult advice to give. The fact is that all of us have different aspirations – our own versions of what success looks like – and different talents. There really isn’t one size fits all. The most authentic answer I can give is to talk about what worked for me in the early stages of my career. My philosophy was to be Patient, Open and Ready. Unfortunately, the acronym for that is POR … so I suspect I’ll never get a book deal out of it…

Early in my career I wasn’t motivated by short cuts to big titles; what I enjoyed was mastery. I liked to get to where I had proven to myself that I was really good at something before looking for the next challenge. And, to be clear, being really good at something meant delivering great results. At that point, my curiosity would kick in and I’d look around for something that seemed interesting and would (potentially) take me out of my comfort zone. If I was offered something new to do, I never said no – sometimes to the surprise of people offering me roles. “I really thought you wouldn’t want to take that on”, was something I heard several times. But why not? If I could learn, why wouldn’t I?

This approach took me from stores to head office, back to stores, to Asia, from multi-brand to mono-brand, to the US, from high growth businesses to turnarounds. Always learning. Often uncomfortably. Not because of a master plan. Because:

1.     I was PATIENT and prepared to achieve mastery;

2.     I was OPEN to new, unexpected things … and when those opportunities arose…

3.     … I was (usually) READY to have an impact and to be quickly able figure out what needed to be done.

So fast forward to today. It should be self-evident that a critical part of the CEO’s role is to identify and nurture talent. Having an eye for great people, and what they need to be able to do their best stuff, is essential to being effective as the leader of an organization. So, what do CEOs look for? What’s the secret sauce? Who are the people that CEOs are going to invest time and energy into?

Let me answer that by taking a step back. Some years ago, a company I worked for engaged the consultancy Hay Group to introduce a competency framework to assess and develop managers. One of the key competencies was Drive for Achievement. If anyone out there has ever managed the implementation of a competency framework linked to pay and reward, they’ll know what a challenging change curve that creates! Even as an assessing manager (and even as someone who was described as having it!), I don’t think I fully understood what a high level of Drive for Achievement looked like. But, over time it’s been clear to me that this is the single most important determinant in deciding who is going to make it to the top and who isn’t.

I’ll expand a little. At executive level in any organization, everyone is smart enough. There’s a threshold of intellectual horsepower that gets you entry to the club. It’s a bit brutal in some ways – you have to be smart enough to understand the plan and contribute, or it just doesn’t work. Of course, there are some industries – like software development – where it is all about IQ (as Bill Gates has often been quoted as saying). But in most other industries it's important just to be clever enough and then to have a well-developed set of other attributes.

What CEOs look for as a real differentiator, is the attribute of being driven to deliver impact and positive outcomes. Not for yourself, not for prestige or pretty titles or to make your boss happy. Because you absolutely have to… it’s inside you, it gnaws away at you. When you see a league table, you have to be top of it … and you aren’t going to stop until you are!

I’ve worked with brilliant people over the years. People I love to talk to, to develop ideas with. The conversations can be energizing and inspiring – they are great people to have in the team. But often those folks won’t make the next step, because of that missing ingredient… Drive for achievement.

All this has been largely learned at the sharp end, but there some excellent books out there that I’ve read along the way and that I’d recommend to any leader serious about understanding this better. Take a look at Drive by Daniel Pink and Grit by Angela Duckworth. Both books are brilliant and take different perspectives on this subject, but both get under the skin of motivation and why some folks go ‘all the way’ and others don’t.

I know that those of you reading this are great recruiters and surround yourself with people who care about people and who have the right values and cultural fit … but don’t forget the secret sauce – make sure you don’t neglect to fill your team with people who also have the drive to make a real impact on the success of your organization.

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