"What will you do to change the behavior of the individual contributors in your organization?"
This is a question I frequently ask CEOs I work with. Usually the answer is a blank stare. Most CEOs (including my younger self) lack a reliable way to influence what employees DO from day to day.
But those individual contributors are the people:
building your product
delivering your product
interfacing with your customers
And so on. In a business at scale, they are many layers removed from you. This is why the CEO needs a mechanism for changing what people do.
What is this mechanism? It's your management system. The management system is the mechanism you use to:
Establish clear strategic intent at the top of the company.
Train managers to align employees with that strategy each quarter.
Equip them to coach and hold people accountable to meaningful commitments.
Without that mechanism, centered on excellent people managers at every level, the CEO has very little leverage over what goes on in their own company.
Managers as Extensions of CEO Intent
The managers within your company, when properly equipped, are extensions of the CEO's intent throughout the organization. They become your proxies in countless daily decisions and interactions where you physically cannot be present.
In a 500-person company, the CEO can directly influence perhaps 10-15 people on a regular basis. But what about the other 485+ employees? The only scalable solution is to create a cascading system of aligned management.
To create your own system of management proxies, focus on these key elements:
Clarity of Intent
Managers can only represent your intent if they deeply understand it. This requires relentless communication of company priorities and values. Your strategic objectives should be simple enough that any manager can explain them to their team without PowerPoint.Consistent Operating Rhythms
Establish regular cadences for planning, reviewing, and adjusting. Quarterly planning sessions with clear commitments and weekly check-ins on progress (like Alan Mullaly’s famous Business Plan Review) form the backbone of execution.Common Language and Tools
When everyone uses the same frameworks, metrics, and decision-making approaches, alignment becomes much easier. Create simple tools and templates that your management team can deploy consistently.Manager Training and Development
Most companies dramatically underinvest here. Great managers aren't born, they're built. Invest in teaching basic management skills like giving feedback, running effective meetings, and coaching performance. (Need a proven program? DM me and I can help.)Accountability Mechanisms
Trust but verify. Regular skip-level meetings and impromptu MBWA conversations help ensure your intent is reaching the frontlines undiluted.
The Multiplier Effect
When this system works correctly, something magical happens. Instead of having just your two hands working on the business, you suddenly have dozens or hundreds of aligned managers making decisions consistent with your intent.
As we scaled NetQoS (a process you can read about in my books) our ability to maintain consistent execution depended entirely on our management system. Sales managers knew exactly how their teams' efforts connected to company goals. Engineering managers understood the product priorities and why they mattered to customers. Etc. Etc.
Most importantly, individual contributors got clear direction, feedback, and recognition aligned with our strategic intent. They weren't getting random, conflicting signals based on each manager's personal preferences.
As CEO, your most important product isn't what your company sells. It's the management system that aligns and mobilizes your people to execute your strategy with excellence.