“Entrepreneur” and “CEO” are titles that go hand-in-hand in business, but their close association has been known to give rise to another kind of leader entirely: the entrepreneurial CEO. That’s what Forbes Contributor Robert Sher calls a leader whose penchant for “strategy tinkering”—however well intentioned—can have an adverse effect on organizational growth.
The temptation to pursue new strategies or other shiny objects can cripple a management team’s ability to execute and distract from the company’s core mission. Sher points to the rapid growth achieved by skincare company Rodan+Fields as a case study in balancing new and existing strategies.
In 2010, Rodan+Fields was experiencing disparate success rates among the company’s growth programs across various regions. CEO Lori Bush could focus on ramping up the compensation plan to attract new distributors or invest in developing the company’s current sellers and identifying potential high-performers.
Rather than a comprehensive overhaul at either end, Bush created a behavioral training pilot program to determine the optimal strategy for the company. The program enabled Bush’s team to experiment and glean wisdom with minimal participation from or risk to the wider organization.
By channeling and vetting new strategies while sustaining organizational momentum, Rodan+Fields has experienced what Dan Chard refers to as The Power of Alignment. Chard, President of Sales and Operations at Nu Skin, underscores the need for a clear, consistent strategy flowing from the management team to distributors in his recent Working Smart feature for DSN.