What should a CTO management training course look like?
What management skills do you require to become a high value CTO?
With most c-suite roles, progression through the ranks involves a natural and ongoing development of skills that equip the ambitious to reach the top.
The CTO career path requires a more jagged turn as developers, focused primarily on technology, require a new set of management and softer skills to deal with the challenges at senior level. (more…)
Board meetings can be an intimidating environment even for those of us familiar with the arena.
Who does what?
Who are the key players?
How can you increase your impact?
But they also provide the CTO with a very visible opportunity to circulate updates, ideas and generate feedback from the key managers within your organisation.
But it’s also important to understand what they’re not such as discussing day-to-day operational matters.
And as with most important meetings, a successful board meeting is almost always down to the preparation beforehand and if necessary, or dropping big issues into the conversation, without first laying the groundwork. (more…)
If you’re new to the start up world or indeed, the wider world of entrepreneurship, then you can do worse than listen to the podcast ‘Master of Scale’.
Hosted by Linkedin founder Reid Hoffman, it’s a slickly produced insiders view of what it takes to make it big, from someone who knows and who continues to invest in multiple early stage companies.
One of Reid’s great metaphors for the attitude required of successful entrepreneurs, is that launching a start up is a bit like “jumping off a cliff and only then, starting to assemble the plane”. You might have a big idea, you’ve seen a market opportunity but the difference between those who sit on ideas and those who go for it, is that the latter are prepared to jump, with little or no idea what’s going to happen when they hit mid air. Like a coyote cartoon, where you race across the cliff edge, then start pedalling hard.
Because launching and making a success your start up or business in general, requires many things not least and probably most importantly, grit and tenacity. Throw in a little luck and a lot of good timing and you have the standard ingredients required but, if the going gets super tough (and it will) and, you happen to have parachute handy then you’re likely to grab for it. No parachute, and it’s amazing how inventive you can become.
One of the major issues for anyone aspiring to board level management or indeed, creating and launching a company themselves is a fundamental change of mindset from being part of a company, to being the driver of that company. It’s about shifting from re-active, to pro-active. If you’re working for a forward thinking company then hopefully, you’re already part of the decision making process, wherever you are in that organisation but, more than likely whilst climbing the ladder you’ll be dealing with strategy coming down from above. Reach that top table and suddenly it’s you setting the agenda, driving the strategy, convincing the outside world, taking responsibility. It’s super exciting, potentially rewarding but, it requires a certain skill set and nerve, that not everyone has.
Can it be learnt? Absolutely on one level in terms of the fundamentals you need to understand but ultimately, whilst everyone approaches the world of start ups and fast growth companies with their own unique perspective, the one unified characteristic for most, is sheer bloody minded grit and determination. To look for the opportunity, to build the product, to remove the doubts and naysayers, to negotiate the obstacles, to lead the team.
But let me tell you, there is no greater motivation in the morning, than looking down and realising your plane building skills need more work.
“Everyone is a bit broken” is a line taken from a 2018 Ted talk delivered by Professor Vikas Shah that looked at vulnerability and how everyone around you, is going through their own challenges and probably some of them are very similar to yours.
The challenge within teams and in management roles, is not many people are prepared to acknowledge this and therefore the behaviour of others can sometimes be misinterpreted.
This can lead to communications, relationships and team dynamics suffering from this lack of awareness and sometimes just an environment which fails that primary test of Psychological Safety, a fundamental lack of honesty.
And there are so many reasons why people don’t open up, alongside a lack of trust in their working environment. Ambition, peer pressure, pride, lack of self awareness and some of the BS that surrounds the startup world in particular can lead to a bottling up of pressures and a building up of assumptions.
Because the truth is if you could strip down most facades, even within very senior people within an organisation you’ll find the lurking shadow of that imposter syndrome and a vulnerability.
A quote widely attributed to George Bernard Shaw was …
“England and America are two countries separated by one language”
We’ve given it a CTO Academy twist by adapting it to that crucial relationship between CEO and CTO ….
‘Two executives united by a different language“