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Q&A With James Lucas
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March 2007
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 Jim
Lucas is chairperson of four separate groups of 55 CEOs and
key executives for Vistage, the world’s largest CEO membership
organization. Jim is a former senior vice president of a major
bank, where he worked closely with the chairman, CEO and board
of directors, and has also had extensive experience with privately
owned companies.
First, what is Vistage, and how can it help business executives?
It has certainly helped me.
We're the world's largest CEO membership organization, with
14,000 members in 15 different countries, most recently including
China. Vistage is focused on helping presidents, owners, CEOs
and key executives become better leaders, make better decisions
and get better results, both in their business life and their
personal life.
One of the points Mill Brown makes in his article
is that an advisory board shouldn't consist solely of people
working within your own industry. He recommends assembling
a team of people with differing backgrounds. Why is this helpful?
Many of the problems that business leaders face are very similar,
regardless of whether it's auto sales, IT services or the
manufacture of windows. These issues frequently cross functional
lines. Having an advisory board with a broad industry base
brings together different views and perspectives that allow
the CEO/owner to benefit from a panoply of advice. It doesn't
mean he or she will follow through on the advice they receive,
but at least they will have the advantage of different voices
from different vantage points.
What's the advantage of bringing outsiders to the table?
If you've got a furniture business, for example, how can a
lawyer, or an engineer, help you sell more sofas?
Smart CEOs and owners realize they have "black spots"
- holes in their own skills. One of the things a top-performing
leader recognizes is how to fill those black spots. If a leader
is weak on finance, then you might really want an accountant
on your advisory board because they can give first-hand advice
on a strategic level, say, on what's the impact on cash flow
if you decide to add another store. If leaders recognize their
"black spots," they can fill them in with an advisory
board.
We find that the Vistage member is not necessarily a typical
business person. They often join because, unlike some other
business people, they recognize that they do have "black
spots." To be able to open up to a group that doesn't
work for you, to tell them your deepest, darkest secrets in
confidence, means you have to leave your ego at the door.
This kind of business leader, one who can do an honest assessment
of their strengths and weaknesses, will see the benefit of
having an advisory board. Someone who is ego-centered, unable
to seek advice, unwilling to take advice if it's received,
they're not going to recognize their "black spots"
because they believe they're Superman.
We often find that businesses get in trouble not because
they've gotten bad advice, but because their leaders are reluctant
to seek advice until it's too late. Why does this happen?
Sometimes the adviser that most business leaders turn to the
day or the night before they make a major decision is their
spouse. Spouses play an important role for all of us, but
that person doesn't necessarily bring a more objective and
broad-based perspective to that challenge. It's very difficult
for us to recognize our challenges. It's a very difficult
process to acknowledge "hey, I don't know everything."
But, as a CEO, your job is not necessarily to know everything;
your job is to articulate a vision, to bring the best people
on board that you can to help you implement that vision, to
give them the support and the environment to be successful.
Your job is not necessarily to know how to do the accounting,
how to do the sales, how to do the operations.
When you're putting together an advisory board, what sort
of traits should you be looking for?
So much is dependent on who is providing the advice. There's
a natural tendency to pick the people you're most comfortable
with. Well, the downside of that is what you really want is
good conflict - conflict of ideas, not personality conflict.
You want someone who will challenge the owner. If the business
leader surrounds himself with "yes people" on an
advisory board, all they've done is duplicate their direct
reports, because most times the direct reports are going to
tell the owner what they think the owner wants to hear. It's
very unusual for direct reports to be strong enough to say,
"Hey, wait a minute, boss, I don't think that's the right
thing to do." Of course, the direct report is worried
about what happens to them if the boss doesn't like their
advice. So you really need an advisory board that tells it
like it is.
Can you give me some examples of how advisory boards have
helped companies you've worked with?
I've got a Vistage member who's in the construction business
who is at loggerheads with a public entity. It made their
life pure hell for the past several months. The worst-case
scenario is that the public entity could literally put the
construction company out of business. The owner brought the
problem before the Vistage group and, in just a few minutes,
ideas were popping up all around. Without giving away the
solution, I can say that that member said to the group, "I
should have brought this to you guys months ago. You would
have saved me a whole lot of heartaches."
For more information on Vistage, contact Jim at
jim.lucas@vistage.com.
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