In this executive episode, David Roche, Founder/Director of Grey Area Coaching Ltd, shares how he helps founders, boards, and CEOs achieve success in succession.
You will discover:
– How to not only select the right success, but help ensure their success
– Why the CEO role is so different from any other position
– How the founder’s journey to CEO is different from any other CEO
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And I am here with yet another high demand coach. It is the one, the only David Roche, who’s a professional executive coach and mentor at gray area coaching, and he works with first time CEOs across many sectors now passionately empowering the first time CEOs in his new book become a successful first time CEO. David has distilled decades of hands on business leadership and coaching expertise into an accessible and strategic guide for those looking to thrive in the C suite. David is the chair of the London Book Fair and the writing agency, new writing north. David was previously CEO of borders in books, Product Director at Waterstones and HMV and Group Sales and Marketing Director at HarperCollins publishing. I think we all know who just about all of those folks are. What a pedigree David, what a book. I mean, I just I get the opportunity to see lots of books by lots of business coaches, and every once in a while, one just like it just hits. And I really feel like that you’ve done that with this book, because being a first time CEO is such a big challenge, whether you’re doing it in the corporate space or whether you’re a founder, becoming that CEO over time, it’s a big challenge. And so I want to kind of start, if you will, with our founders, because we got lots of folks who are listening in the entrepreneurial space. And one of the what, how would you describe the journey from founder to CEO for them?
David Roche
That’s a great question, I think. First of all, thanks very much for having me as a guest on your podcast. Big fan be I mean, there’s sort of two ways that people become a CEO for the first time, you know, in corporate life, and a lot of the books aimed at people who are who are sort of suddenly thrown into the deep end, and think that everything that they’ve done before means that they’re they’re the right choice, and they’re ready. And then they realize, Oh my God, it, it’s so different having that lonely at the top role. Yeah. And then it’s very sudden immersion. Founders take it, take a very different course. You know, everyone knows that analogy of frogs sitting in in water, this goes up to boiling point, and they don’t jump out because they don’t because it’s all there’s no sudden impact. They get used to it, and until it’s too late, I think founders have that more that sort of journey. And we all know founders who possibly shouldn’t have, have handed their business over at a certain point to someone to manage on a day to day basis, or to run in total. And how, how founders realized that that critical point that the team is now of a size that and complexity that it requires. Either the different skills from themselves or their jobs changed fundamentally, from maybe business development to actually managing the team and developing them is it’s difficult. There’s no one size fits all the ball. The book is very much about the key relationships that a CEO needs, irrespective of which direction they come from, with their key contact space within the company, managing up to the shareholders and board to external as well through the media and partnerships and so on and so forth. And I think that there’s no right and wrong answer with relationships. It all depends on who’s who’s sitting on the other side of the table, but also whether you know their circumstances, what their circumstance like today compared with how they were a month ago, you might get a different answer. So the book is it was described to me by the editor, as not a how to book with bullet points on answers, but a why to book, as you know, under the circumstances, these are the things to consider when you when you’re when you’re dealing with people and trying to build those relationships.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So as CEO, regardless of how we got there, I’ve found that there’s almost this universal pressure that we think everyone’s expecting me to have all the right answers, right? Everyone’s expecting me to know what to do. But I have found, personally in my being a CEO, training my successor to take over after me, and now coaching CEOs, that that’s not really the case, like your job as CEO is not to make all the right decisions. I found that it’s to build a team that’s capable of making the right decisions. Would you agree with that?
David Roche
Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I think succession planning is is a really interesting area that I think the book is, is probably as much for those planning success. Session as it is for those stepping into the role, because it’s the transition that is, that is often the difficulty. I think McKinsey quoted recently that, I think of standard reports, top 1500 companies lose a trillion dollars every year on the basis of poorly man managed transitions from C suite and CEO appointments. So, you know, this is a prevalent issue that is everywhere. And, yeah, the other thing, the other thing, I think, within succession, is it’s interesting, is not only for the people who are who are managing that and trying to develop people, but actually from those who are keen to develop their own skills, to put themselves in a position to be appointed. Because when it comes to the the interview for CEOs, chances are most of the people in on the shortlist can do the job. And the key question to me is not, can you do the job is, can you be trusted to do the job? And so anyone get certainly going through the internal process of climbing up the ladder. There’s a lot you can do to actually develop that trust so that it makes makes it easier to to be given the job, but the succession plan is a key part of that everyone talks about. You know, building teams is getting the best people around you. If they’re better than you great. And there’s that whole argument between specialists and generalists. That’s an interesting one, but it’s but I think not people don’t understand that developing your own successor is a real key point to enabling your future to succeed into the CEO’s role. Because if it’s 5050, choice between you who are doing a fantastic job with an amazing department, contributing brilliantly to the company, and an outsider who who this probably is equally as talented, potentially. And they said they go, Well, actually, let’s take the outside at it, because we can’t risk you leaving your department because you’re too important. If you develop your own successor, then that that becomes a very different conversation.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s so true. So one of the things that that really surprised me about becoming a CEO, and then I realized was nearly universal, was how much it questioned. It made me question, who, who I was, like, who am I or like? What, what do I actually bring to the table? Right? I think a lot of folks, they get to the top and they feel very exposed. And in your book, I think you came across the same thing saying 70% of leaders doubt their abilities. Yeah, why is it that imposter syndrome is such a big deal for CEOs?
David Roche
It’s really interesting. I think it’s I think there’s another way of asking that question, which is, Who are these 20% or 30% who don’t have any doubts? You know, we, we had a prime minister in the UK called Liz truss. He lasted 49 days who seemed to have all the answers and didn’t meet and sacked anyone who, who was had been around with a lot of experience and nearly wrecked the economy. And, you know no doubts at all. And it’s that Dunning Kruger effect, where you know you have, you have over goblins, because you know nothing about the subject. Now difficult it is, I think, when you’re thrown into the CEO role, you suddenly go, my God, this is totally different. But the interesting I was an article in one of the one of the newspapers in the UK, Guardian this morning about saying the baby boomer generation of the generation of overconfidence, that actually it’s a very different ratio for people coming through now, Gen Z and above, I don’t know they. I think it’s perfectly natural to have to have a level of and even is occasional imposter syndrome. I think it to me so it does. I think the problem is that what you do as a result, if, unless you do have a coach and mentor who helped me through with this, is you will go the opposite way. As you said, I need to have all the answers instead of actually, I need to have the best questions, and I mean, to build the team and involve them. So there’s a there’s a powerful community, around around around the strategy, then he but if you tend to put on this armor that says, hey, I don’t want to show any weakness. I don’t want anyone to worry about the decisions that to appoint me, my boss, the chair, the board. They don’t want me to come in and look weak, and the team that I reported into me, who may well have one person who’s sitting there going, I should have got the job. CEO as well. They that, you know, the dad armor has two things. One, it it means that you are not the person you want to be. And I think one question every CEO should ask themselves is, hang on, am I going to be the CEO that I I am, and therefore there’s going to be no pretending or whatever, and I’m going to be comfortable that, or I am going to be the CEO that I think that’s what I think a CEO looks like. So I better be like back so you don’t miss arm. The problem with the armor is it makes you look supremely confident. So everyone backs off and goes, That person doesn’t want any help, that person doesn’t want any advice. They’re so confident. And so it sort of doubles down on itself and can become very, sort of self predict, predicting, if you like.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, it’s so true. So I want to shift our attention here, kind of fully into this idea of succession and planning for it. We’ve got a lot of founders who who were CEOs, very effective. They’re looking at, okay, what’s the next stage of my I can’t do this forever. What’s this going to look like? But you’ve got a pretty alarming statistic that 40% of CEO appointments fail in their first 18 months. Why is that? And how should we be thinking differently about CEO succession to improve that rate?
David Roche
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s all sorts of reasons why that might be but, but research that I dug into tends to say that it’s down to that transition that I mentioned earlier, and that the focus has been on on the selection process. We need to get the right person. You need to get right person right job done, but we’ve got the right person. Transition is very different to, you know, to a plan induction, yeah, which is right? Six o’clock you’re going to be meeting with so and so, eight o’clock, so and so and so on. They that it’s much more about not only transitions, but this is about what issues you might face culturally and so on. So before the legacy that the previous CEOs left and the culture that’s imprinted onto the company, it’s also about preparing the team, the senior leadership team, for a new leader to come in as well, because they may be a different why that? Why is that? Why have this person been chosen by the board? That’s what senior leadership team are going to be wanting to know. I had one person, one CEO I coach, who said, You know what, I’m he self improving imposter syndrome. He said, You know what I really would have liked is that the board who appointed me to actually give me a one pager that I can keep on day one, we said, these are all the reasons why we appointed that you’re a great blah, blah, blah, and I would have done that out of the draw daily basis and looked at it and gone, yeah, actually, I do have all those things, and therefore it’s a valid appointment. The I’m not sure certain boards I’ve worked with would want to have that down in writing. They were looking to appraise the person after three months or whatever. But there you go. But I do think that that transition is probably the key, because most of the reasons we can dig into the data, most of the reasons for the exit of the CEO is is to down, down to relationships with the key people that they haven’t built that trust, relationship with the chair, with the board, they haven’t got the team on board and and that’s why the book focuses on relationships. I think key in everything. And actually, it’s key in life. You know, you see, you see people who are incredibly skilled with it, and they make it look so easy, you know, down from from properly listening and actually valuing Google’s input and ideas, to to allocating Praise, whereas to you not taking credit for other people’s ideas, on so on and so forth. It’s it. It’s felt that difficult. And I guess, like anything else with a coach, the that it’s very easy to it’s much easier to see the answer to other people’s problems, and it’s very difficult to see your own. And that’s what coaching is there for. And but I think it applies very much in relationships as well. Another Coach, what I’ve been doing, I’m sitting there going hang on, but you’ve got a very difficult relationship with your chair, and talk to me about that. And actually, as a coach, you end up acting like some sort of adapter, communications adapter, like a plug adapter that’s sitting there going, hang on, you’re saying this. He’s hearing something else or and the frequency of your, you know, your meetings and your and a level of detail going to needs to adapt. Because he’s that sort of person. She’s that sort of person who likes to hit, likes to work this in this way. Day. And actually, sometimes you don’t, they don’t change the way they operate the company or do their work, but they, but they dramatically change the relationship, just on that basis.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s so true. So David, I’ve got a question for you I like to ask all my guests, and it is this, what is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching and listening.
David Roche
Okay? I guess I mean, I believe passionately that the every first time CEO should have a professional, an independent, most importantly, coach and mentor. Because I think that that it just boosts the chance of success. And why would never want that chance to success. But I guess I got Australia first time CEOs because it’s a niche that I really enjoy doing, and it made the most difference to me when I when I first started coach. But actually, that sort of misconception that coaching and mentoring is for people at the beginning of their journey, and they only you know, I’m too good. I’ve been around too long. I’m too good. I don’t need coaching and mentoring. And you see it in sports stars, people who are the greatest of all the time of what they’re doing, the federers and djokovics and Tiger Woods, these sort of people. They understand that they need a coach and a mentor and someone in their corner that unconditional support, which is focused on you and you alone, is is, you know, it’s critical, and so I guess my secret that I’d like to just or that either like to dispel, is that coaching and mentoring is only for people beginning in that journey.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s, I would argue it’s almost, it’s more effective, right? For those who are doing well, you can, you can accelerate even faster. David, now you talk a lot about relationships in the book. We really didn’t have the time to explore that here further. We just just scratched the surface of the surface. Anyone who’s a first time CEO who’s thinking about placing a CEO who can use more help in this space, how can they get a copy of your book and where can they find more about your coaching services?
David Roche
Blatant, plug. Here it is. The book is available on Amazon. Amazon.co.uk amazon.com, amazon.ca, wherever Amazon is, the book’s available. Becoming a First-Time CEO, and Roche as in coach, so that’s easy to remember. And my My website is www, greyareacoaching, all one word.com, but grey is spelt in the English, UK, English way with G, R, E, Y, not GRAY, as you would have in the States.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. Well, David, thank you so much for being on I told you before we hit record, but I just want to thank you for writing this book. There’s a lot of people who need it. It’s been missing for far too long, and it’s phenomenal.
David Roche
Can I? Can I just, can I just say the the best? I’m not a big fan of business books, and that are 300 pages long and have a million bullets. This is, this is full of stories and anecdotes. And the best comment I had from someone who read it is said, you know, not many business books can pull off being a genuine page turner. So that was the best compliments I could possibly get.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s true. So true. Well, David, thanks for being on. Really appreciate it. For those of you watching listening today, you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care you.
Contact David Roche
David Roche is a professional executive coach and mentor at Grey Area Coaching and works with first-time CEOs across many sectors. Passionately empowering the first-time CEO in his new book Become a Successful First-Time CEO, David has distilled decades of hands-on business leadership and coaching expertise into an accessible and strategic guide for those looking to thrive in the C-Suite. David is the Chair of the London Book Fair and the writing agency New Writing North. David was previously CEO of Borders & Books, Product Director of Waterstones and HMV, and Group Sales and Marketing Director of HarperCollins Publishing.
Want to learn more about David Roche’s work at Grey Area Coaching Ltd? Check out his website at https://greyareacoaching.co.uk/ and get a copy of his book Becoming a Successful First-Time CEO on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Become-Successful-First-Time-CEO-relationships/dp/1781338329
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