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Ty, thanks for joining us today.
Thank you very much for having me.
It is our pleasure, my friend.
So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
So my name is Ty Wiggins.
I work for Russell Reynolds where I lead our CEO and executive transition practice globally.
I've been with Russell Reynolds for five years now.
Prior to that I have my own coaching and consulting business with a business partner.
You can probably hear from my accent that I'm Australian, that I am based out of our London office and I have dual citizenship between Australia and the U .S. due to my father being American and being born on an army base in Europe.
Well, fantastic. And Ty, we are excited to have you because you are going to give us a sneak peek into the world of CEOs and the difficult conversations that they have and your background, your experience and the work that you do is really unique.
And can you just set the stage for the audience about the types of difficult conversations that the CEOs are having and the difficult situations you help to coach them through?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
So the work that I do is primarily with CEOs as they step into their new role.
So I start working with them generally a couple of months before the official start date.
And then I work with them for 12 to 18 months as they start a CEO. In a lot of cases they're first time CEOs, but in many cases they are second or third time CEOs.
So the role that play is really part advisor, part coach, part challenger in terms of their thinking, and one of the aspects around why this is valuable to my clients is it's very difficult for CEOs to get honest objective feedback, especially early on.
You know we have this aspect of people telling CEOs what they want to hear or not telling them what they don't think want to hear.
So having somebody alongside them, especially in these early sort of months, to really look ahead at some of the challenges that they will have, use my pattern recognition to understand what might be coming up for them, my understanding of the transition process and the expectations of what the market boards and organizations look for, is very very helpful.
And so in that period of time as you would expect there's a range of tough conversations, there's a range of tough decisions, there's a range of personal challenges that are going on because the CEO role, as we know, is one that's very hard to prepare for.
And as such, the transition to being CEO, I think, is probably the toughest transition you can go through in your professional career.
What's so interesting about this is that I don't think many people find themselves in this position being the person who transitions to CEO, first of all, so that makes it rare.
But then also know, when you are on the outside looking in, you look at the CEO's, they have to carry themselves with a certain amount of confidence, a certain amount of gravitas, and it can seem as though they are almost impenetrable when it comes to some of the challenges that they might face.
Like it seems like they're always ready, incredibly competent, savvy, smart.
And what you're showing us here is that, especially at the beginning portions of this transition into the role of CEO, they can be a very vulnerable, lonely, isolated type of experience.
And before we get into the specifics of the conversations, I think it will be really instructive to explore the emotions and the psychology behind what it is that they're experiencing, because that emotional cocktail that is stirring in their minds every single day is going to have an impact on the way that they navigate these conversations.
So can you tell us a little bit about the emotions and the psychology that come into play during this transition period?
For many CEOs, it's a role that they've aspired to for a long time, whether it's been very purposeful or not, it's been at the back of their mind.
So I have worked with a couple who are what I'd call surprise CEOs, didn't really want it, ended up with the role.
But for the most part, people are thinking about this for years.
So they're watching this role carefully They're trying to understand it.
If you're a senior executive working directly for the CEO and close to the CEO You have a really distinct view of what you think this role is going to be like So when a CEO is appointed, there's the process they have to go through to be selected.
Like any huge role in your career It's anxiety provoking.
It's exciting at the same time.
Once they're selected and announced There's this mixture of obviously excitement, there's relief that they've attained this top of the house role, and then there's these variations of nervousness and stress and a lot of this comes from the fact that the CEOs, especially that I get to work with, have a high level of humility.
So they're very conscious about the challenge that they're undertaking and there are days, sometimes weeks, if not months of, can I actually do this?
Can I pull this off?
have I bitten off more than I can chew?
And so this goes up and down as they go through this early period.
And as they get closer to the start, they're usually in hyperdrive in trying to learn what they can and digest information.
They're just consuming it as fast as they can.
In the belief that if they learn it all straight away, they'll be more successful.
As they go through the first couple of months towards that six -month period, there's often this period of increasing confidence that can be knocked a little bit between sort of six and nine months and I in the book I talk about it as the Crash because up until that point the CEO is often getting a lot of smiling and waving from the organization Now people are happy they're there and they're excited that The person is talking about change and improvement and then about six months there sense to be this push back from the organization And that can really knock them So I I work with them through
this period of time trying to call out that Whilst it looks good now, it might not stay that way.
So I think one of the really pleasant things about some of the people I interviewed was just how normal and humble they were and how challenged they were about the role and the responsibility and how at points they were anxious and nervous that they didn't know whether they were doing the right thing and they wore that quite heavily.
This is perfect. This is exactly what I wanted to hear because we can recognize just how incredibly challenging this is.
Because not only are they dealing with all of these emotions, we talked about the anxiety, the excitement, relief, nerves, and stress, it's a blend there's some positive, there's some negative, there's probably some fear, some trepidation, all of these things.
And then as they are feeling all of these things, all of these different emotions, And then they need to comport themselves with class, with dignity, with respect.
And then have these conversations while managing to stay calm during those conversations.
So you recognize that it's not just what is being said in the conversations or what specific conversations are happening.
It is the ability to manage those emotions during the process of having the conversations.
Because if they can't manage those emotions, then they won't be able to perform at their best during those conversations?
And so, what tools have you seen different CEOs utilize in order to manage those strong emotions during those tough conversations?
We talk a lot about EQ across the business community.
When I'm working with CEOs, especially in transition, I talk quite a bit about emotional control.
The aspect of a CEO being calm through difficult times, for a lot of us, what we want to see and what we expect to see.
So these emotions that they're going through, they really need external outputs.
And sometimes the work that I do involves me getting a phone call from a client who just needs to vent, or just needs to get something off his or her chest, and I'll say, do you actually want me to help here, or am I just listening?
And they're going, I need you to listen right now, because there's no one else I can say this to.
Here's what happened, and here's how I'm feeling.
Okay, great, we can do that.
So they need to have these outlets, they need to be really self -regulating.
So when we talked about the emotions that they're going through before, they're going through this range of emotions.
They're in a role that is different to what they expected and in the book you'll hear people like Ramón Laguardo who was 20 -plus years at PepsiCo get to CEO role after running enormous divisions and go wow this is not what I thought, I'm close and it's still not what I thought.
so there's a shock there's a bit of a knock to confidence and at the same time they've gone from being well -known and popular to the main attraction when you're a CEO as you walk through the office as you sit in the meeting room as you talk to anyone everyone is watching you and they are listening to everything that you say they don't miss what you say so you're under this intense scrutiny and I talk to people often about their poker face when they say things like oh I was really disappointed, but I didn't say anything.
And I said, yes, you did.
You absolutely told everyone you were unhappy with that.
Through your body language, through your response, through your face.
You need to be so attentive.
So if you combine the emotions, the fact that they think they know what the roles gonna be like, and they don't, and now everyone in the organization is watching them like they're under a microscope, it's incredibly stressful and incredibly difficult not to slip up.
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I did not think about that aspect of living life under a microscope, too.
That, again, is an added layer of challenge, and so wow, so when you find yourself in those types of situations.
People are analyzing your facial expressions, people are analyzing your mannerisms in your body language.
They're paying attention to your tone and trying to read between the lines of what you are saying and what you are not saying.
And for the person who is in that position, they are, again, under a lot of emotional duress and stress and pressure.
So what advice would you have for somebody who is coming into that conversations, that difficult conversation?
What is it that they can specifically do to gain some of that emotional control?
In some ways, like a little bit like some politicians, one of the things that I think helps CEOs early is to have some responses that they have sort of prepared, especially around a couple of things.
So new CEO represents change and challenge to the organization.
So people very quickly try to establish, is this good for me or is this bad for me, especially in the senior levels?
So the way that they do that is to get a really quick read on what you as the CEO are going to do.
So the sooner, if I'm one of the senior execs, the sooner I can get a read on what you think, the safer I can make it for myself.
So I'm pushing you for what's your view on this, what's your opinion on this, I know you have a view.
And for CEOs that are happy just to chat about their early musings and thoughts, they can often find themselves in a bit of trouble down the track because people don't take it as just ideation on the fly.
They take it as this is set in stone.
And I've got some really funny examples in the book of people running off to do stuff and one of the quotes that I love came from Ron Williams, who was a former CEO of Aetna, and he said, a CEO's casual utterances can result in concrete buildings and his experience of someone running off and setting up a $20 million project on something he said in a meeting but wasn't really serious about, he was just thinking about it.
So you've got to have this type of component.
So what I say to them is, you need to have a response that sounds something like, yes, I have an emerging view but it's too early for this to be formalized.
What I'd like to know more about is X, Y and Z.
So you have this way of deferring some of these early opportunities.
People are trying to get you to give your opinion and have some other, you know, sort of responses that will put people at ease without committing you to different things, and that helps you with some of these responses.
Another two aspects that I've worked with a lot, and I mentioned sort of both in the book is this concept from Nelson Mandela about speaking last in meetings.
And I heard Jeff Bezos talk about it again the other day on a video.
As the CEO, if you come into the meeting and set it up, frame the discussion, frame the problem, give your early thoughts.
You've not only started the meeting, you've generally ended it as well.
Because it takes a very brave soul to challenge something that the CEO has set.
So if you come into the meeting and say, all right, here's the problem, here's what I think we should do.
but I'm really interested in everyone's opinion, you've killed it, you've done it, like it's over.
So you need to be really, really conscious about your influence as CEO on any of these discussions, thought -processes, brainstorming sessions.
You can absolutely lead the witness often.
Another technique that I've given leaders, especially when they are hugely intelligent, they often have the right answer, but they're missing out on the nuances that people are giving them, is to go back to writing on an old -fashioned notepad.
When they hear something, they write it down, which gives their brain that nanosecond to think about the response before they blurt out the solution, or they blurt out some sort of response that steers the conversation.
So there are little things like that that we can help people do to increase their emotional control and their ability to respond and not react.
Ty, this is gold. This is gold!
Because what you've done here is you've given people concrete tools that they can utilize to exercise that emotional control.
And I think a lot of times we might have that stoic mentality where we need to find our way to sit there in the face of a very, very difficult conversation.
Just stone -faced, not showing any emotion and knowing exactly what to say at all times.
And what we're recognizing is that even people at the very top of the company, the CEOs often struggle with the same thing.
they don't always know what to say.
They often feel these emotions and they're difficult to manage.
So, just taking a notebook, jotting things down, delaying your response, introducing that pause, that is something that you can do in the moment to give yourself time to respond.
It sounds like also, before the meeting, we're gonna actually think through what it is that might be said and how we would respond in those situations because I love that example that you gave where you're saying, all right, thank you for this information.
I'm gonna need a little bit more time to think through this, But considering that and then asking a question, it allows you to show the respect to the other person to show, yeah, I am listening.
Because the things that you are saying are valuable.
And I appreciate that I can't add anything to the conversation at this time, but I'm still in the conversation that I care about you enough to ask another question.
And so you're validating the person without putting yourself in a position where you might be exposed inappropriately at this time.
So I love how concrete these strategies are because it's not just that CEOs and emerging CEOs could utilize these in their difficult conversations, but it's also everybody in there who's listening to this podcast in their own way, can find ways to utilize the exact same techniques.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
When you're new in a senior role, you know, you need to be comfortable with saying, I don't know people know that you don't know.
So sometimes the pressure to feel like you need to have the answers comes from you.
So, there's a lot around confirmation bias.
There's a lot around biased action.
We really need to sort of get on top of.
And this is the conversations I have regularly around people's expectations of themselves.
And I'll point out, the only person in that room that thinks you should know the answer after two weeks is you.
Nobody else feels that.
So, you're not actually helping yourself, nor are you helping the situation.
It is expected and acceptable to say, actually, at this point, I don't know.
But I'm happy to go find that out.
or this is something I need to understand.
So there's this degree of honesty I think in your early communication but where this gets lost is when you become CEO for the first time, all this stuff just bubbles to the top like right I am in charge, I am responsible, I need to lead, I need to have the answers, I need to do X, Y and Z and depending on where you've come from in terms of your function, you'll respond to this differently.
One of the progressions to CEO which is common is the COO to CEO. Now COOs have a bit of a privileged role in organizations.
They can be a little bit sharp elbows, they're known for getting stuff done, they're operational, they just move with pace, they move around the organization.
and I've worked with a bunch that can be quite controversial.
They're the ones in the executive team meeting, dropping the proverbial hand grenades on the table and challenging marketing and challenging finance and having this great role and then they become CEO and they can't do any of that anymore.
They're now the leader of the organization.
They need to be calm, they need to be considered, they need to be measured.
For some of them it can be a real challenge and this is where some of those techniques about backing them off a little bit is so important.
And, you know, one of the views I have around this is, the COO can work with 80 % correct information.
They're moving faster getting stuff done.
But when you're the CEO, working with 80 % might mean, you know, significant differences for the organization.
So if you lead the witness and cut off 20 % of the data coming from your team, you're going to miss great opportunities as the CEO, very different to the CEO. Ty, you know what's so fascinating about this, it's recognizing that in our lives there are going to be different roles that we play.
You know, for me, I'm the CEO of the company, but I'm also a husband, I'm also a father and I'm also a friend.
And in all of those roles, I communicate, but I have to communicate differently in each of those roles.
And here, when it comes to the C O O transition to CEO, what we're recognizing is that the very skills that could take you to the top and help you to become an incredibly successful Chief Operating Officer could make you very ineffective as Chief Executive Officer.
And so there has to be a bit of an internal negotiation for you to recognize, All right, who am I in this situation and who do I need to be?
And then it's almost like once we get clarity on our role, our professional identity, then that clarity can lead to the proper negotiation skills manifesting themselves in the conversation.
Because Because it might not be a situation where you don't have the skills to have the particular conversation.
It might be the fact that for whatever reason you're struggling to identify the appropriate role or identity within yourself in this conversation.
100%. One of the questions I often ask CEOs in the pre -transition phase, so ideally before they've officially started is, what type of leader does the organization need you to be at this time?
And I ask this question for a number of reasons, but one is to let the individual know that as CEO, it doesn't work that everyone just needs to fit in with them and their leadership style.
To be effective, CEOs will adapt their leadership style to suit the organization and the organizational situation to create an environment where the individuals and the teams can flourish and do their best work.
And this obviously relates specifically to how they communicate, because it's with their communication that they set the tone.
You know, I talk to leaders often about reminding them that we judge ourselves by our intent and others judge us by our behaviour.
So if they're communicating things without offering up the intent, then they shouldn't be surprised that people will just assume the intent, and it may not be what they actually thought.
So early on, they have to over index on the intent, I'm going to change this series of meetings and my intent is.
I'm going to move the conference and my intent is.
I'm going to work on the values of the organization with a team of people and the intent is.
Because an understanding the intent makes the communication and the actions far clearer.
And one thing that people need to remember is that nobody dies waiting to work out what the intent is.
They go straight to it and guess it themselves.
This is what runs around the organization.
Ty just did so and so and I think he's doing it because he's going to sell out the vision to a competitor No, that's not my intent, but I wasn't clear so now two thousand people are worried about their jobs and going home to their respective partners stressed and anxious so you have to be so crystal clear about all these things up front and a lot of times what gets in the way again is this bias to action and the fact that the incoming CEO feels that he or she needs to do things early to establish that they're the right person for the role, that they're up for the challenge, that they've got this.
And in doing so, they can do things that actually put the organization off.
I'm laughing because one of my good friends and mentors, John Diffenbach, he was a guest on the podcast too, as I was kind of maturing in my role as CEO, I was again, biased towards action.
I had to do, do, do cause I've built, I started this solo and then built the team and everything.
And so I'm used to having to constantly do things.
And he was helping me to recognize that as a CEO, a major, like your primary function in many cases is communication, effective communication.
And it ties in perfectly with what it is that you're saying here, because that bias towards action could lead you to take action without properly communicating why it is that you're taking that action.
And then, like you said, it allows other people to shape a narrative that might not be as charitable.
And I think there might be a bit of a, almost like a mental block when it comes to doing this in communication, because we might say to ourselves, isn't it obvious why why I'm doing this?
Isn't it obvious? Why wouldn't you just assume the best?
We're on the same team.
And we almost feel like it cheapens our intellect to have to clarify the intent and do it so frequently and so consistently.
But one of the things that I appreciate about this tip and everything else that you've given throughout this whole podcast, is that this is easily actionable.
We can all put this into practice.
It's more about making sure that we have the discipline to do it with consistency and the humility to recognize that even though we might not feel as though we should have to do this, we recognize that we still should do this for the betterment of the team.
You're a hundred percent right.
I think early on when you are new enrolled, especially as a new CEO, you get better bang for your buck from what you communicate than what you actually do.
And there's a couple of reasons for this.
When you're new into a CEO role, your ability to really do significant things in the first month is limited, but your ability to communicate what you're thinking, what you're learning, what you're hearing, how your thoughts are emerging, asking these questions, talking to people about where they see the organization, the opportunities and challenges, is enormous.
So you shift the bar far better by what you communicate than what you do.
And I've worked with individuals who had the view, which is a lot of people have this view, is that my good work speaks for itself.
I just need to focus on the work, get things done, and to your point, everyone will understand why I did it and how well I did it.
But when you're a senior or CEO, by the time some of these actions come to deliver outcomes it can be months, and in those months people are going, what's going on?
What is this person doing?
So you can't leave it to chance.
So communication versus action early on, I encourage people to lean into the communication, and communication is one of those things that we never master.
We're constantly getting better at it, We're constantly adjusting.
We need to, I often talk about, there's no bad catch. There's only a bad pass.
So I put everything back onto the, when the CEO goes, listen, I was really clear.
They didn't get it.
No, no, that's not how this works.
You have to get the message to them.
That's your job. If they didn't get it, do it differently.
Say it again, try again, do it again.
You can't just go, they didn't get it.
So you need to own that communication.
And this is one of the skills that if you're stepping into a CEO role from a senior executive role.
This is where I'd spend a lot of time before you land really getting discerning and deliberate about how you're going to communicate, what you're going to say, what questions you're going to ask in your early one -on -ones, how you're going to respond to different questions because people will be hanging on every word. Ty, this is so, so good.
First of all, personally, as a CEO, I appreciate this coaching session.
This feels like a coaching session to me, so I appreciate that.
For the listeners too, I know that they were able to get a lot out of this, just not just for those who are in CEO roles, but also just everyday leaders.
There's a lot that we all can glean from this information.
So Ty, I really appreciate you coming on today.
And before you go, can you please let the listeners know again about you, the work that you do and your book?
Sure. It's been great to be on.
So Ty Wiggins, I lead the CEO and executive transition practice for Russell Reynolds.
I've just written my first book, which is called The New CEO, which is available on Amazon and all the usual places.
It talks about the challenges of landing well and performing quickly in the CEO role.
But there is a lot in there that I am getting really good feedback on that senior executives are taking on board. So I'm very privileged to do the work that I do and I love it.
Incredible. Ty, thank you so much for coming on today.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you very much for having me.
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