MIKE FROMMELT, STRATEGIC TALENT PARTNERS – March 2025
30+ years of conducting C-Level searches in private companies has given me the opportunity to meet with many, many leadership teams as well as the chance to interview over 10,000 executives along the way. In a way I’ve become somewhat of a corporate “profiler” having met and interviewed CFOs, CEOs, VPs etc. of companies ranging from five million dollars in revenue to over one billion.
This experience has given me a perspective on how private companies either continue to grow and succeed or how they stagnate.
A number of years ago I noticed a pattern in many of these companies; many had outgrown their leadership team. At first, I found this surprising. The owner would tell me the company is $30M, however, I would meet the leadership team, and the CFO felt more like a $10M leader, the VP of Sales felt like a $20M leader and the head of Ops was more akin to a $5M company than one doing $30M a year.
How could this be? What I came to realize was the extraordinary capabilities of the owner/entrepreneur was making up for shortfalls on their leadership team. His/her skills, or sometimes just work ethic or even sheer will, had taken the company well beyond the capabilities of the leadership team. In a way, the owner was doing a percentage of his/her leadership team’s jobs. For example, they are handling 20% of the Finance role, 15% of the Operations role and 30% of the Sales role.
Many times, the owner doesn’t even realize they are doing the work of others, they are so used to it, it doesn’t even dawn on them. But obviously, this can only go so far. At some point the owner hits their limit and the business hits a plateau in terms of growth.
To avoid this and keep the company growing in a sustainable fashion, owners need to think about their leadership team in terms of the future, rather than today, or yesterday. Mapping the skills, competencies, and capabilities the business needs from its leaders and connecting them to the growth plan is critical.
Sounds great, but how do you realistically do this?
First, you have to get a “State of the State”. Where are the gaps, how large are they and how are they really effecting our growth? What critical activities are you (Owner) doing that you shouldn’t be? What could you be doing if you weren’t executing the work of others?
Going through an Organizational Talent Assessment can give you this baseline information. This assessment will not only identify if your leadership is already behind, but it will also begin to project what you will need for the future.
Once you recognize the gaps you can start to plot a Strategic Talent Roadmap for the company. This roadmap will ultimately identify the skills, competencies and capabilities for the next stages of growth. For example, “We are a $20M company today, but plan to be a $40M company 5-7 years from now. What will my CFO need to be capable of, to run the Finance function of the $40M company?” Of course, understanding these future capabilities will direct the development of your CFO, so you can begin that development now.
Most business owners I’ve encountered have solid plans for what their companies will need in terms of products/services, operational capability, sales volumes etc. to match their growth goals.
Yet very rarely do I see an owner who intentionally maps their talent needs, particularly their leadership talent, against their growth goals. In my experience those who do invest the time to look at these issues and build their talent for the future, very rarely find themselves getting stuck.
