A Wheel of Fortune of a Leader
Updated: 3 days ago
The ability to be in the right place at the right time.
One of the most interesting examples used my media to portray of how useless, trained consultants are at running businesses, is the story of an ex-McKinsey partner who took the reins of Starbucks in early 2020s. The company reported a dismal performance and consequently the nearly appointed leader went through resignation. The internet transformed the situation into an HBR-style educational meme. The placeholder message here: “Those advisers are not capable of running businesses.”
But the lines of differentiation in this rather plain depiction are blurred and mismatched. Let’s differentiate the three:
Business owner (applicable to a startup founder, family business leader, or major individual shareholder).
CEO (a hired manager with competencies in selling the company vision, managing stakeholders, and an aptitude for building a team of competent people, often smarter and more specialised than the chief manager).
Consultant (a freelance consultant is to be omitted from our construct; by consultant, in our case, we refer to a consultant/advisor who has risen through the ranks navigating corporate intricacies, delivering on sales to clients, with greater insight into the industry and its benchmarks, and rather solid skills of persuasion of both internal and external stakeholders to reach the highest positions).
Senior consultants are likely to make poor founders and/or family business owners – naturally so. You have to be wired differently to go through 20 years of experience in a brutal corporate tit-for-tat fight for clients, projects, and team members, only to then find yourself as the founder of a startup – unless we are talking about a startup in a highly regulated industry, backed from the get-go by big guns with significant capital injection.
A CEO and a senior consultant specialised in a specific sector have different career trajectories, but in terms of competencies and requirements, they are not too far from each other.
What went wrong in our coffee giant example? If we remove any possible personal inefficiencies (individual ones, not related to a consulting background) – the person was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This brings is to the concept of fortune – being in the right time in the right place.
To seize a good chance in success is about knowledge and adaptation.
At times, our best scenario is simply avoiding the worst case.
But here, some of the most qualified people get blinded by knowledge or ego (or a dangerous potion – a mixture of the two), or, not uncommonly, are blindsided by design by those who are supposed to support decision-making.
Being in the right place at the right time. How does this ability of control one fortune being developed?
Parents & family circle – for those born into families who understand the principle, the whole upbringing is structured as a journey towards it.
Surrounding yourself with the right mentors and sponsors – throughout your career and life journey.
Using mantic instruments like astrology, which in themselves do not change events, but rather help you understand yourself, your weaknesses, strengths, and those blind spots across all areas of life, and be ready for the moment (remember – right place, right time).
We often spend way too much time on learning how to succeed.
Perhaps we shall spend more time on learning when and where success is possible (and bring compassion to consultants – LLMs are already giving the industry a hard time).
