Beyond the Exit: A CEO's Journey to His Next Chapter
This is a quick story of how Robert navigated the human and talent side of his CEO transition after a private equity earn out.
Put simply, Robert was his company. He had a simple plan: Finish his earn out and then spend more time in Palm Springs doing fun stuff. Unfortunately, the closer the time came for his transition the more his worry niggled at him. His main business concern was clear: the future CEO needed to be better at critical thinking and strategic decision making. His VP, Operations needed to be better at communicating a vision if he was going to step up into the COO role after the current COO was promoted to CEO. The talent imperative became louder the closer the date emerged. He knew he needed some guidance here.
The personal worry was different. It was more like an inner knot that wouldn’t go away. Robert liked to be busy! He liked having something to focus his mind on. Maybe work was more intense and challenging then he would prefer some days, but the bottom line was that Robert chose this life. He loved being an entrepreneur. Maybe his Palm Springs vision was too drastic. He started to think about staying on with his company as a mentor and board member. Or, maybe learning more about investments. But, that inner niggle wouldn’t go away. Was he just scared to reinvent his life? To be someone different? To let go? Was he THAT guy?
He first came to CEO Next Chapter focused on the business problem: He wanted a structured, logical way to develop his key executives. He wanted a talent succession methodology. And, he wanted to have some candid conversations with his successor without creating unnecessary friction.
But, as he moved through the talent process, the personal imperative became clear. He needed to spend some time architecting his life in a way where he could stay involved in strategic work, but also give himself space to discover who he wanted to be in this unwritten next chapter. The Introspection Design Method gave him comfort that he was applying strategic rigor to his personal life, just as he would in business.