Here is my (updated ) list of 29 CEO blind spots I have observed over time. Check to see which ones apply to you (warning: remember they are blind spots, so you may not recognize them and you may want to ask your close advisors to assist you!)
Market Blind Spots
1. Not focusing on the best customer segments for your company- In the beginning, you just wanted customers. Any person that would spend money for using your product was a wonderful win. But, over time, you may need to concentrate your limited resources on the best possible customers. As soon as you find your greatest consumer segment to target, you need to locate the ideal influencers, indirect marketing channels, and indirect sales channels to reach them. Quite a number of CEOs are blind or partly blind when it comes to their market. Boost your concentration to obtain market clarity!
2. Not finding or losing the true voice of your customers- You may have began with a clear voice of the customer, as you were on the front lines of your organization. But as you grow, you lose a real sense of the customer because you are exposed to a limited sample and you are getting filtered information from sales, customer service, marketing, and other departments. You need a true voice of the customer if you are going to perfect your delivery into the market. The more complete, the better.
3. Failing to understand the competitive dynamics in the market- There are a lot of things goings on in your market but, like the voice of the customer, you have limited and filtered information coming to you. The more clearly you comprehend the competitive dynamics, the better you can modify what you are doing to tackle the issues and opportunities. For example, if a competitor is having issues you might want to acquire its best people and target its customers! If a competitor is moving in one direction, you might want to duplicate it or you may decide to move in the opposite direction. Either way, you will need to know what is happening in the market and then act appropriately!
4. Not creating the appropriate ecosystem surrounding your company- Every single company needs an ecosystem of integrations, partners, influencers, advisors, and others for it to really own and defend a product market. Many CEOs are blind to the need to target and generate the right ecosystem.
Market Touch Point Blind Spots
5. Failing to focus on competitive advantage- If you want to triumph, you really need to concentrate on creating competitive advantage. If you you aren’t aware about what your advantage and disadvantage is or if you don’t have distinct goals for improving it, you are running blind!
6. Failing to focus /Failing to align your touch points in a way that keeps your brand promise and produces your competitive advantage- your touch points involve your product, professional services, customer services, marketing, sales, billing, and other interactions with your market participants. Focusing and connecting your touch points to deliver on your brand promise is key, unfortunately, many CEOs don’t have this as a clear focal point.
Methodology/Process Blind Spots
7. Being too process-oriented- In the early development of your product and prospects you need to optimize your ability to institute changes and test novel approaches. Being too process oriented both takes focus away from more important things and reduces your ability to iterate extremely quickly.
8. Failing to be process-oriented enough- As your touch points with the market become apparent and are working properly, you need to scale up everything you are currently doing. If you don’t have clear methodologies/processes in place, you won’t have touch points consistency and scaling up will be challenging. What worked in the early stage won’t necessarily work in the expansion stage!
People Blind Spots
9. Recruiting below par in your stronger areas - This is the number one most common blind spot for CEOs. You are good at sales management so you don’t recruit a strong sales manager. You are good at product management, so you don’t hire a strong product manager.
10. Hiring “caretaking” managers instead of “creating” managers- Your company needs senior people who can develop methodology, programs, and teams, but many CEOs are blind to the fact that genuinely good senior managers may not actually be really good for your company because they don’t have experience creating. If you require creation, hire people that can create!
11. Failing to create new senior roles with the growth of the company - Young companies possess small management teams and successful larger companies have larger management teams. As your company grows, CEOs need to carve out new senior roles, but many CEOs are blind in recognizing this need. For example, among many of the most important senior roles that typically gets carved out too late is the Product Management role. It is the most challenging role to carve out politically, as either the CEO or development head clings to it too long. Yet another role that is frequently missed in quite a number of companies is the Business Development head, who generally works to build out the company’s ecosystem (#4 above)
12. Failing to recruit the best person into each role- With the growth of your company, you gain the ability to hire more specialized and much more experienced people into most jobs. quite a number of CEOs follow a blind loyalty to their incumbent employees instead of matching the best person to the job (you can still be loyal by getting the incumbent manager into the right role for them!). Frequently CEOs aren’t cognizant about what “A-Caliber” looks like in a certain position especially if they haven’t experienced it yet…this is an actual blindness that the board, investors, advisors, and professional recruiters can aid you with.
13. Failing to build a high-performance team- High performing teams can have 10x the impact compared to the same individuals operating as a minimal performance team. Quite a number of CEOs are blind to this fact and don’t put the effort into developing the teamwork into the team.
14. Not building a high-performance board- Great boards add substantial impact and network to a company, however, some CEOs are blind to this reality and consider the board a necessary evil. Once again, the board, investors, advisors, and professional recruiters can assist with this.
Management System Blind Spots
15. Being Vague on the company’s aspirations (mission, vision, values), competitive Advantage goals, business growth strategies, or company development strategies. The CEO, many times, believes there is clarity, but CEOs are blind to the truth that most people in the organization don’t actually have the clarity (you can test this by individually asking various people what they are…I guarantee you will get diverse answers!). The more clarity the team has about what the long term goals are, the more they will effortlessly do things that will get you there quicker!
16. Being vague on Goals- CEOs are blind to the reality that the goals are not crystal clear to the organization. Very few companies are truly prepared for the year and locked and loaded for each quarter. Once again, you can test your blindness by surveying a few people independently. The more clear the goals, the simpler it will be for your team to realize them.
17. Being too detailed with goals- If you have quite a lot of goals or you are too comprehensive with the goals you give your team, it is just as negative as being obscure on goals. The team will not have clarity about which goals to focus on. The CEO thinks that he/she is being clear, but is blind to the fact that too many goals lowers clarity.
18. Not developing and maintaining a rhythm in the organization - Organizations perform best if they have a rhythm to them (I like annual, quarterly, weekly, and daily cycles). Quite a number of CEOs fall short on understanding the need to develop a rhythm and, consequently, do not create one in the organization. As a leader, there are a lot of techniques to create rhythm.
19. Failing to ensure that the organization is up to speed - All of the important information gets to the CEO, and the CEO sometimes becomes blind to the fact that the rest of the organization doesn’t have this information. Keeping the organization current on the condition of the markets and company is important, as it helps every person understand where you are as a company. This, combined with your business direction, helps people to know what they have to do to close the gap.
20. Not trusting a new senior person enough - A number of CEOs recruit a new senior person and presume they know precisely what to do. They are blind to the simple fact that the senior person does not know the goals and aspirations for the organization, the goals and aspirations for the unit the senior person is managing, and the background of what has been tried successfully and unsuccessfully to date in the unit. This raises the probability of the new person faltering in the role.
21 Not Trusting a new senior person enough- Entrepreneurs are typically control freaks. It’s what makes them effective in the early stage of a business as many pieces need to be developed and connected. As the company develops and the entrepreneur stays as the CEO, they are sometimes blind to the management style change that they need to make to permit a senior person to be productive in their organization. The senior person should have complete understanding illustrated above, but the senior person also needs ample operating room to create a unit and achieve the goals.
22. Allotting too much time on things that other people ought to be doing for the company- As the organization develops, the function of the CEO undergoes changes and many CEOs are blind to the need for change. The CEO’s function is likely to start off focused on product and veers towards customer development and company development. In time, the CEO role has only three things that make a difference and everything else should be passed on to the team.
Economic Model Blind Spots
23. Not having a clear understanding of the company’s economic model- Your economic model is the model that verbalizes how the activities (and their costs) and pricing generate your cash flow from buyers and how the two collectively push your current and projected economic outcomes. The greater a CEO understands the economic model, the better you can figure out what adjustments you should try to improve your economic model performance. A lot of CEOs are blind to the company’s correct economic model or overly complicate it which makes it difficult to handle.
24. Lack of economic model goals- Goals, combined with the existing circumstances, create the foundation for change. A lot of CEOs are blind to the need for economic goals or are blind to what they can do to boost economic model efficiency.
Other CEO Blind Spots
25. Being the chicken playing the piano- Some CEOs blindly do the very same things that worked for them in prior organizations or that they see other people doing. Some chickens are trained to think that playing the piano will get them food so they keep playing the piano over and over. Strategies that worked in the past or work for other people won’t necessarily work for you in your current scenario! This poor chicken plays the piano and then expects the food that doesn’t arrive. Don’t be the piano playing chicken!
26. Following poor advice from trusted sources- Having a great set of trustworthy advisors is really crucial, but not all advice is good advice. But Quite a few CEOs blindly follow the advice of their trusted advisors. Take the advice for what it is worth, think about it in the context of your situation, and test the advice with others before you act on it!
27 Not listening to stellar advice from certain sources- A number of CEOs are blind to advice from people they don’t trust. There are quite a number of wonderful ideas out there and a lot of newer people on the market that you don’t trust may have the best new ideas!
28. Going wide- The number of doable things that an organization can do is limitless. Some CEOs are blind to the reality that the more things you attempt to do, the fewer things you will achieve. It is seriously important to concentrate on the handful of things that matter and push those things to completion, but a lot of CEOs try to get their organizations to do too many things, and it actually makes the business accomplish less!
29. Being Lonely- A number of CEOs are blind to the reality that the role of the CEO is the loneliest role in the organization. When I tell these CEOs about how the role is the loneliest role in the organization, I normally can see them relax…it is a lonely role, so if you are lonely in the role, you are normal!
This is my CEO blind spot list for the moment. Do you have any CEO blind spots? What are the CEO blind spots that I am missing from the list?
Scott Maxwell partners with management teams, boards, and investors to help build great companies.
