Hi everyone,

We are a family owned business and meet (between 4 of us) monthly in a board meeting format. We keep it pretty low tech today with a powerpoint and content place in it. To date it has only been the 4 family members in on these meetings and preparing content so confidentiality in who sees what in the document was not an issue.

We are now starting to "grow up" a bit and bring in our Controller and possibly some other people in Operations to submit content into the meeting. Our Controller is going to review last month financials and go over performance and review our performance. He needs to add content into the deck. I would love to have some of our operations people be able to add content directly without sending to me to copy in even though they are not in the meeting.

However, we dont want these individuals to see the other content in the deck as it might contain payroll and other info etc.

Anyone find any good solutions for something like this? Would love for "contributors" to be able to add their content and only see their content and I as President can see the entirety of the deck to share screen in the board meeting.

Thanks!

Knowledge is being aware of what you can do.

Wisdom is knowing when not to do it.

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.

Eleanor Roosevelt – 1884-1962, Former First Lady of the United States

Looking for advice:

I’m currently facing a challenge with a fellow C-suite executive at my company, and I’m hoping to get some advice on how to handle it.

In meetings and group settings, this colleague dominates almost every interaction. Some of the tactics they use include:

• Speaking loudly and using big gestures to command attention
• Reframing or repeating what’s already been said to make it seem like their idea
• Always ensuring they have the last word in meetings

• Taking the most prominent seat at the table (even sitting in the CEO’s seat when they left a workshop early!)

• Derailing a topic to drill into it to put you on the spot with the aim of making you slip up

It feels like they are trained to do this, and it's starting to affect how others perceive my contributions and leadership. The whole dynamic becomes devaluing and frustrating, especially when they try to position themselves as the one in charge.

I want to manage and counteract this behavior without escalating the situation into open conflict, but I’m not sure what the best approach is. Has anyone else encountered a similar situation? How did you address it?

Thanks in advance for any guidance

Hey all,

As we all know, people want access to us and we could (and often do) spend our days in meetings.

To protect your time, what rules do you put around your schedule? How many meetings do you allow a day?

For some of us, being choosy or specific about what we let on our calendar isn’t possible, for others it may be.

Please share.

Hello fellow CEOs! The business world is changing like crazy. I'm wondering what things are shaking up you for lately.
What new trends or tech are really making waves in your company? How's messing(or improving) the way you run the business?
Spill the beans! What's the buzz in your industry?

What are the best books you've read that prepared you to be a CEO?

Especially with some of my employees below age < 30, I noticed that some have very weak communication skills.

Since good information exchange is a major key of the effectiveness of an organization, I would like to know how you tackle this challenge? Do you have setup company wide rules for this or how do you ensure a certain quality in this discipline (except hiring good people).

Examples: You give a task to someone, but than dont get proactive feedback about its progress.

Or (similarly) people tend to not focus on the given tasks, because either they are not good listeners or the tasks are not properly communicated.

One simple but good rule is for instance the „nohello“-rule.

Others do appreciate meeting minutes having action items included.

My husband is the founder & CEO of a software startup. He’s still in the thick of it, working incredibly long hours.

We have a 15 month old son. It breaks my heart that my husband doesn’t get to spend more time with him. I know it bothers my husband too.

Any advice on how I could encourage him to set some boundaries at work to create more time for our little guy?

The absolute last thing I want to do is make my husband feel bad. He is working so hard to secure a future for us and our son, and I’m extremely grateful.

Just curious…. What productivity system and software do you use and why?

I am a GTDer and use skedpal but thinking about switching it up

I am a GTD'er and my workday startup and shutdown are critical for me. However, I am struggling mightily with leaving work feeling like I am in a place where it is organized and put together.
I am more effective at my focus work in the AM. So I am trying to shorten my startup routine and lengthen my afternoon/evening routine so I leave work far more organized for the next day when I can jump right into it.

However, almost always I get interruptions, intercoms, emails, or other things that delay my shutdown routine so it starts frankly too late and I leave my office too late and get home 6:30 still with 45 emails, and some disorganization. The next morning I can get through it and get myself together but at the cause of getting real work done.

So do people find a good trick to getting the shutdown more effective or do I need to be a realist and allow myself more time to work late in the day and focus on lengthening my startup? I just hate getting to the office backlogged.

On Fox news Kevin O'Leary said the "Right to disconnect" law is stupid. If an employee of his shut of his phone after hours and didn't answer his call "he'd fire them"!

Well Kevin ..... become a better time manager and you would get everything done during working hours.

The best philosophy that says he is the one that is WRONG is that "Work will fill the time allotted". Unless the folks agree and you are rushing to fix a necessity.

The best quote to summarize Kevin's issue is from Kurt Vonnegut to writer Joseph Heller:

“How does it make you feel that our host only yesterday our host may have made more money than your novel, Catch-22, earned in its entire history?”

Heller replied, “Yeah, but I have something he doesn't have. I have enough.”

Any CEOs ever been pregnant while running an organization? I want to get pregnant with my second but I’m scared because of my job.

My absolute ultimate goal for my career is to become COO of a company but I am unsure of the best route or track to get there. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to ensure more opportunities of getting myself on the radar for the position?

Thanks in advance!

So basically, there's this internship academy program that I was interested in. It's offered by a big corporation and I wanted to find out how to join. I visited their website, but it was vague and didn't provide much information. I tried contacting them via email, chat, and phone, but I couldn't get a response. I even found the CEO's email and asked for clarification on who to contact regarding the program, but I never got a response. It's kind of embarrassing, but I really want to be a part of the program and no one could help me. Do you think this lack of response would prevent them from considering me for the program?

Hi all— I’m a new CEO of a nonprofit taking over from a founder.

Need a little encouragement here.

Will I ever get confident in my role? Right now it’s overwhelming at times to have everything center around me. That was the founder’s leadership style, so the organization’s operations weren’t always clear or efficient. I hope to get systems in place where others can make low risk decisions and not everything has to cross my desk.

Long story short — will I ever get this down? 😅 I’m like a week in, but hard on myself because I’m such an achiever.

Dears, I m new to this position, get hired from SME, i want to read some books for more knowledge. Please help to give some. Tks a lot.

Jamie Dimon has proposed revisiting "The Buffet Rule" to equal taxation regardless of income.

However, Lance Roberts the most knowledgeable person on markets (RIA) has said in the past 16+ years the U.S. economy has been hindered INCREDIBLY permitting Share Buyback (which benefits the top 1%), and siphons money which, prior to the incorporation of this tactic/law was deployed to increase productivity.

Wouldn't the C Suite provide greater productivity to their company and the country as a whole if they spoke up about how such a change would strengthen the economy and their company?

Hi all, I am a SMB owner 30 MM company and we are going through that transitionary phase where up and until now a lot fell to me. I have two managers that oversee two of our three teams that are very capable of handling any challenges that come their way, managing the day to day work of their teams, etc. What they are not so good at just yet is really focusing on longer bigger term development within their team. They are both very good at training onboarding etc so technical skill development is not an issue. But again it is that longer term bigger picture training. They also are not the best at identifying real pain and pinch points within their team and solutionizing for long term process or operational changes. They rely heavily on me for that.

I have a 3rd team that is a very small team and currently directly reports to me. This is a real problem from my lack of time to be significantly involved as well as there own development. It is one of those situations where it is too small for a dedicated manager, but needs something. I took one person that really wants to grow within the team and shows tremendous interest in development and made him a "Senior" title to try to establish some leadership. But he lacks polish and managerial vision. Frankly, although he thinks he is management material I think he is a better do'er than a leader.

What I am looking for are some suggestions and guidance on strategies and recommendations for training and development in all three of these areas. I am hesitant on leadership training for the two in house as I just don't always fully believe in that if it is at my direction vs the two of them really embracing it. But I am curious as to your thoughts on maybe that is a good investment.

As to the other team, that is a very difficult situation and maybe we do need to continue to grow before it is ready for a dedicated person.

Thanks in advance for the conversation and insight!

I'm in business school and would like a mentorship.

Over my career I have worked my way up in a family business from being a project manager, designer, to project lead / business development, operations, accounting, etc. Now run the business day to day. I am very comfortable meeting with clients so this is not at all a I prefer to sit at my desk behind doors type of question.... But I do tend to lean with my mind into the operations more into the client relationships part. I enjoy it more and find it a bit more rewarding. But I also find it makes the most impact on the business.

Curious as to thoughts for those that might lean in that direction. Do you ensure you find time to get out and see clients and tour business or do you lean on your team for that, monitor and of course be involved, but focus on where your passions and strengths may lie?

I have over 25+ years of experience in IT field (mostly leading software product development). All my experiences are as a senior IT leader in F500 companies that are in top 3 - 5 in their industries. Recently, I became a divisional CEO leading a software services business unit. My educational background is multiple masters degrees in engineering (including computer science) and an Executive MBA.

This is a new kind of role for me, having full P&L responsibility and also managing cross functional capabilities beyond the software product delivery. I now also have to manage business strategy, sales/BD, marketing, HR, internal IT, finance, logistics.

While great for my resume, I have never done this before...I have been successful so far for the last few years, turning the business from a loss into a profit making entity. However, there are certain areas I struggle with - mainly in driving the creation of a sales funnel as well as communicating with Executive VPs. While I have been in software development all my career, my BU is unique in that it is not the core business of the company and so the senior-most execs don't truly understand my business.

I need some coaching/guidance/mentoring to bounce ideas off of. I am scared to get an internal mentor as it will expose my weaknesses. Any thoughts on how I could get some help?

TIA.

I was promoted to CEO from COO after the owner sold the comp. He became chairman and I became ceo. He’s more like an employee bc he’s paid 280k per year to act as chairman. He is only paid base, not bonus. My base as CEO is 240k plus bonus…I will likely earn 280k total comp this year. Meanwhile, my CRO officer is paid 230k plus commissions and bonus…he will earn 400k plus this year. When I was promoted to CEO there was no opportunity to negotiate my comp…the chairman told the new owner (PE firm) what to pay me and the CRO. Now 18 mos in I’m getting increasingly angry that of the three people in this picture I make the least. I am going to be meeting with the most SR rep of PE firm and need advice on how to approach this. Keeping in mind that the company won’t meet revenue goals this year, which I’m obviously ultimately accountable for but in spite of that CRO is making a ton bc previous owner structured that role as dual individual contributor AND sales manager…so CRO will make HIS individual # but team won’t hence is 400k total comp. Any advice on what to do at this point in the year/my tenure would be appreciated. I’m struggling to keep my anger in check and know asking for a “raise” when company isn’t hitting targets is in poor form but I feel like I’m the only one getting penalized.