A couple of weeks ago, Eric Mangini, was fired as the head coach of New York Jets. He was the same person who up to only a few weeks before was referred to Man-genius, for his smarts and how those smarts translated to how his teams performed on the field. Within a week of his firing, he was hired as the new head coach of Cleveland Browns, as the Browns management was looking for someone with previous head coaching experience. I find it very interesting that someone can go from genius, to no-longer-genius, to smart-and-experienced in a matter weeks.
What does all that have to with Silicon Valley?? A lot. I have seen many CEO appointment done in the same way head coaches are fired and hired in NFL. A few months ago I got a call from an executive recruiter (who had previously placed me as a VP of marketing) checking unsolicitated references on a couple of CEO candidates whom I knew. Both of those candidates had previous CEO experience, and to be honest, not good ones. I gave my fair and honest feedback to the recruiter, and then asked him if I could throw my name in the hat (just to check his reaction). His answer was simple: The board has instructed me to only look for ex-CEO’s (regardless of how ineffective they have been). The recruiter had no stock in the company otherwise he wouldn’t have chased either one of those candidates.
It’s always been obvious to me that companies hire resumes - they don’t hire people. In this example, if the board cared to see who they were hiring, they would have never hired any of those CEOs.
That explains why some CEOs spend more time producing PR for themselves while at the job, than they companies they work for or the products they market. I have often see more news about a company’s CEO than their technology or products. If you notice the track records for those CEOs, they are the ones who consistently ride one company to the next (bigger and better). On the other hand, the CEO’s who focus on their companies and their employees, end up staying there for long periods of time (sometimes their entire life) and keep growing the company through technology and products.
The lesson: It’s not about what you do, what you deliver, or what you enable. It’s about what you’re thought of possibly doing, delivering, or enabling.
As a long suffering Jets fan, I’m quite familiar with futility. The Jets mgmt makes terrible personnel decisions especially regarding coaches. Look at all the great coaches they had go thru there … Lou Holtz, Al Groh, Bill Parcells, Pete Carroll … and we still can’t get back to a superbowl after 40 years!!!
I think the analogy with CEOs is similar. Sports management tends to knee-jerk react to what the media and fans think based on this past year’s performance. Bad year, you’re out. Boards tend to knee-jerk react to what the analysts and media think about last quarter’s performance. Bad quarter, you’re out.
And as shareholders, employees, and customers we can only do one thing … wait till next year.