I enjoyed talking with Adelina Chalmers today about the executive mindset. We had a wide-ranging conversation but we summarized our main takeaways at the end of how to think like an executive:
1) It’s about company results. It doesn’t matter how well your function does if the company doesn’t succeed. That means business thinking: how are you increasing revenue, lowering costs, or reducing risk?
2) Taking ownership of risk, including responsibility for results you don’t fully control. You may do all the right things, and still not get the desired outcome, and live with the consequences. Read Annie Duke’s book Thinking in Bets for tips on how to operate in that reality.
2a) Risk taking means that proactive communication is critical, especially in setting clear expectations e.g. “We are stretched with our current resources so while we can hit that project deadline, we will be likely to slip if something new pops up.” There should be no surprises even if something negative happens, because you should have communicated the risk of those outcomes at the start.
3) It’s not about you. What are your cross-functional executive peers trying to do, and how will you help them succeed? Rather than get frustrated by them not helping or understanding you, seek first to understand them (tip of the hat to Stephen Covey) and help them first.
What else have you seen that makes executives especially effective?