TITLE: Making Sure You Do What Should Be Done
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: July 22, 2018  9:48 AM
DESC: 
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BODY:
 In
<A HREF="https://blog.ycombinator.com/interview-with-sam-altman-from-the-high-growth-handbook/">
        an excerpt from <EM>The High Growth Handbook</EM></A>,
 Elad Gil talks with Sam Altman, the president of Y Combinator,
 about some of the mistakes CEOs make as their companies grow.
 At one point, Altman says "The role of the CEO is basically to
 figure out and decide what the company should do and then make
 sure it does that."  The problem is, most CEOs like one part
 of that assignment more than the other:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 The hard part is that most people want to just do the first part,
 which is figure out what the company should do.  In practice,
 time-wise, I think the job is 5% that and 95% making sure that it
 happens.  And the annoying thing to many CEOs is that the way you
 make it happen is incredibly repetitive.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 From my own experiences, I see how this could be a problem for
 young executives.  I have been an academic department head for
 over ten years now.  Being the CEO of a startup is surely a more
 difficult job, if only because of the global stability that a
 university provides around an academic department.  But department
 heads do have to work with faculty and deans to figure out what
 the department should be doing right now and then work to make
 sure the department does it.

 As head, I have encountered the annoyance Altman points out: a
 lot of what a department head has to do to get the work done is
 repetitive, often boring, and rarely the kind of disciplinary
 work that attracted one to academia in the first place.  For the
 first few years, a new head can ride the adrenaline that comes
 from the excitement of new tasks and new people to work with.
 After that, it can sometimes feel like a slog.  It becomes a
 small challenge each day to keep the department's larger goal in
 mind and persevere.  That, I think, is pretty similar to the
 challenge for CEOs that Altman is talking about.

 Perhaps this problem is simply another form of
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2010-12.html#e2010-12-01T15_45_40.htm">
   the gulf between idea and execution</A>
 that often separates successful entrepreneurs from those who
 come up short.  Figuring out what to do is only valuable if you
 can make it happen.  That happens in the trenches, in mundane
 activities of the everyday.
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