Tips for Landing an Executive Role

If you’re an MBA clamoring for your first executive post, read on.  This interview with Bob Bradley touches on peer executive networks, career coaches, and international business.   Bob’s company, MD2MD, links up Managing Directors in the UK so that they can network and learn from peers.

LISA:   You’re an MBA with experience in several c-level positions.  For those who aspire to be a CXO, what advice can you offer?

BOB: Use the tools the MBA gives you to the fullest, but remember that they are simply that, ‘tools’ to help your understanding and provide insights.  If there were a right and wrong answer to every question, all the well qualified MBAs would identify the same best opportunity in the same best sector and use the same best people to follow the same best strategy.

That is not really how the world is, so complement the insights you get from tools by testing your thoughts with a range of personalities inside and outside your business with a range of experiences and intuitions.

And one final point.  Whilst normally the wisdom of crowds applies, there are times when the crowd is wrong and you need to lead.  If most people and tools suggest a different decision than the one you feel is right, then you should be questioning why you feel the way you do, but it doesn’t mean you are wrong.  There are times when it is right to trust your own intuition. All of my best decisions have been the ones where I was the sole voice and where I went against the crowd.  With hindsight, many of those who felt at the time I was wrong have since acknowledged that I was absolutely right and they are pleased I stuck to my guns despite the opposing pressures at the time.

LISA:    Do you recommend having an executive coach?  If so, tell us more about the value you find in coaching relationships.

BOB: Yes – you won’t find a top sportsperson who doesn’t have someone to help them develop their skills.  Why should business be different? A good coach is someone who helps you step back, work ON the business not IN it and see the wood for the trees; who helps you gain clarity and confidence; and most importantly someone who challenges you to perform at a higher level.

LISA:    What is the difference in a coach and a mentor? How can a professional find a mentor who is a good fit?

BOB: The terms are used in various ways by different people, so it is always best to clarify expectations of how it will work for both (all) parties at the outset.

The definitions I find most useful are that a coach deliberately and with great skill helps their client to develop their thinking, solely by great questioning and challenging.  They help their client to understand based on information and beliefs they already have and to reach decisions based on models they already know.  They take great care NOT to add in their own information, ideas or opinions.

In contrast a good mentor will do much the same as a coach, but will also, when they judge it appropriate introduce new information, ideas, and opinions from their own training and experience.  Similarly, they will educate their client with tools, models and analysis techniques they find useful.  Finally the mentor will usually also provide contacts and introductions where they are relevant.

What is critical to both roles is that emotional ‘ownership’ of any analysis, information and decisions is left with the client.  Neither the coach or mentor will, if they are behaving properly tell their client what to do, as to do so would disempower their client.

LISA:    When you ran the academy for chief executives, what is the one skill or experience that most executives wanted or needed?

BOB: I still run a similar group called MD2MD and I think I have to answer by saying it is not one single skill or experience, although maybe it is a single feeling.  I’ll come back to the feeling point later, so first to deal with the skill or experience point.

The main thing I found was that most executives value the ideas and thoughts of other executives far, far more than they value experts.  They value real world experience.  And if they can get a range of (often vastly differing) real world experience based advice, then that is great.  It is that very variety of views that enables a business leader to make better, more informed, more insightful decisions when the decision is, as I discussed earlier, one that has no simple right or wrong answer.

And to answer the question in another, slightly oblique way.  I do think there is a single feeling that they crave.  That feeling is the confidence that results from feeling you’re not alone.  The confidence that comes from realising that there are many other business leaders out there wrestling with similar challenges.  The confidence to do what you know to be right, expecting a lot of flak, but knowing that you’ve reviewed it with a group of peers and remain convinced it is right.

The confidence from understanding that it is in the face of tough challenges and tough opposition that the very qualities that define leadership emerge and distinguish the good from the great – in business and in life.

More than anything else I believe that the value of organisations like the Academy, like Vistage their direct competitor, like my own MD2MD or like any other peer group process is in developing and inspiring leaders to be true leaders that make a difference in the world.

LISA:    Our group loves international business.  Tell us something unique or interesting about doing business in the UK.

BOB: I’m probably playing to stereotypes here and no doubt will tread on a few toes by doing so, but having worked for and with a few US companies, the biggest difference that strikes me is the degree of cultural comfort with self confidence.

It is slightly difficult to explain, but we Brits like people to be quietly confident. I’m afraid sometimes we even like backing the underdog, but that’s another story!  What I’m getting at is that in the US, being confident in your own abilities and expressing that confidence clearly and openly is good and valued and an accepted part of doing business.

In the UK, we are, I’m afraid, a bit strange and undoubtedly a bit difficult to deal with because we operate with subtleties and hints and less directness.  Don’t misunderstand me, we do want people to be confident and to know their stuff, but we don’t like them to show that confidence too directly.

We’d much rather hear how wonderful you or your product is from someone else, and then have you say  “Oh that’s very kind of them but …” and then say something to change the subject.  To us that displays confidence by not needing to discuss yourself!.

In other words if you want to do business with a Brit, then you need someone else to provide the evidence of your capability.  If you show too much confidence yourself, you will be dismissed as …  er… am… an American!  Not that there’s really anything wrong with that of course.  It’s just that we will dismiss your confidence as just something that comes with the stereotype,  assume it is misplaced and you’ll come second to someone who displays their confidence in more indirect ways.
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Twenty years after his MBA and having run a number of major training companies, Bob now spends his time helping other business leaders become more successful leaders through his Managing Director Group MD2MD, as an independent Business Mentor near Oxford and as a non executive director.  He also has his own blog “Provoking thoughts and insights for (business) leaders”.