What Does It Take To Be A Successful CEO Interview of Robert Shemin

    MIAMI, FL, February 06, 2015 /24-7PressRelease/ -- "How Come THAT Idiot's Rich and I'm Not? " author shares the secrets of being a successful business leader.

1. What are three key challenges for CEOs / business leaders?

1. Getting, keeping and developing the RIGHT people is key. The biggest cost, challenge and investment every CEO has to make is in people. 2. Staying Focused. Keeping the company and all the employees focused on the mission and the bottom line and not being distracted by ego, politics and wasted time and energy. 3. Dealing with and adapting to constantly changing technology, markets and client needs.

2. What are 4 core competencies of CEOs that you want to see in new CEOs?

1. An incredibly positive attitude towards the company's growth and people.
2. A proven track record of success, growth and results.
3. The ability to deal with very different types of personalities, clients and the vast array of understanding marketing, production, finance, sales, interpersonal relationships, leadership and technology.
4. Communication is the key. -Being able to communicate the mission and the message.

3. We are faced with a dilemma in business ethics, how can we inculcate a sense of ethics in our managers?

The only way to create a culture of ethics is by example and leadership. It has to start at the top. From the CEO all the way down to every employee. Just like anything it cannot be assumed that just by talking about ethics you will get results. You need to create training, culture and an incentive system to reward ethical behavior and punish unethical behavior. There needs to be a culture of zero tolerance and each and every employee needs to be educated and make it a personal and company wide mission to be ethical.
By the way, over the long term contrary to some beliefs this will INCREASE profits.
Unethical behavior is short-term thinking. Ethical behavior is for long-term growth and sustainability of profits.

4 Do you have winning team? How do you motivate your team? Assess their performance and make them accountable for results?

Every person and every team is motivated for different reasons. We assume that people are motivated by money. Actually hundreds of studies have shown that money is probably 3rd or 4th on the list of motivation for people. Recognition, a sense of belonging and a clear path of growth have been proven to be major motivators. A great leader needs to ask their team what their personal motivators really are dig down into their core values. Furthermore making the top performers job easier and removing constrains from them will increase the winning teams results. Furthermore dealing with the poor performers on the team immediately and working together with them to create a program of improvement or dismissal will get amazing results. Another key ingredient is creating fun competition, contest and rankings. Competition and contests have been proven to increase productivity between 30/ 60 percent. Also, there should be daily, weekly, quarterly and annual accountability and recognition.

5. Sometimes chief executives stuck on short-term operational goals at the expense of long-term strategic planning.

Being a chief executive is always a balance between short-term, mid term and long term planning and goals. Everyone on the company should know the mission and goals of each player, each department and the company wide plan. It's the CEO' S job to communicate this and balance this.

6. How much integrity is important for a CEO to discriminate between the right and wrong?

For a CEO to discriminate between right and wrong is super-important. Communication has been shown to derive from what people do and not what people say. Remember, all of your constituents are watching: Directors, shareholders, managers, employees, customers, vendors and the media.
Everything you say and do is and will be scrutinized by everyone. All ethical discussions about integrity boil down to two things. This is basic ethics and philosophy. Every action and word can be determined to be right or wrong by theses two methods:
1. Deontological or 2. Consequentialism
Deontological is if you say the truth is important you always have to tell the truth. --Even if it means that you may loose business, customers or that people will get hurt.
Consequentialism means that you weight the consequences of whether you tell the truth or not. Integrity means that you go with the deontological and are always a person of your word.

7. Harvard Business Review's research enlightens us that E.Q rather I.Q is highly essential competency for business leaders? Why Emotional Intelligence is important for CEOs especially in tough times?

Emotional intelligence is probably one of the most important competencies for a Business leader. Even a high tech company, a bank or a production facility has to understand that behind every business process, customer decision, and employee is a person. People, passions, emotions and decisions can make or break your business. Understanding how people's emotions operate in good and bad times is key for your success. People skills will create success or disaster, probably more than any other skill in your business. One wrong person or decision can bring down an entire company of thousands of people. The right people, the right decisions and the right attitudes can create a fortune for you and your business.

8. Describe an instance where you made a significant mistake being a CEO? Any regret or key learning?

I once did a joint venture with an individual who seemed competent and could bring my company a lot of business and profits. I believed what he said without verifying his credentials and background. I also disregarded a CEOs' most incredible tool, called intuition. He did some things and said some things that were a bit strange but I disregarded them in the hopes in doing a lot of great business. This individual did not do what he said and created almost 2 years of problems for my business. I believe in business there is either SUCCESS or LEARNIG. This poor decision on my part by not verifying his track record or paying attention to my intuition cost a lot of money and a lot of time. I have since learned to verify everything and everybody. I also learned to follow my intuition and watch everything that everyone does.

9. Please list and rank your three job motivators and de-motivators being a CEO?

Everyone is motivated by different factors. You need to find out what your motivations are and what other people 's real motivations are. My top 3 motivations are:
1. Helping people
2. Using our business for social entrepreneurship and helping the community
3. Satisfaction of doing great deals and great business.
To me business is like a fun game. Some of the de- motivation factors for me are dealing with politics of people who are not focused on results. 2. Wasted meetings and communication.

10. Business speaks language of digits. To what extent CEO should be finance savvy? What are the three most important numbers in a firm's financial statements?

The number one reason businesses go out of business is cash flow. Every CEO needs to learn and understand the language of accounting and finance. I have leaned these lessons the hard way. Every week I recommend that every CEO, and I do it personally , looks at the cash flow of each business. If there is a cash flow problem then you will know about it in a week. I am always amazed when I open a magazine or turn the business news on and see a CEO of company or the leader of a country shamefully admit that they are upside down 2 Billion dollars. The leader often says we were not aware of the problem or it just "snuck up' on us.
Certainly they have financial statements, they just are not looking at them.
When are you looking at your financial statements?
The 3 most important numbers in a firm's financial statements are:
1. Cash flow 2. Cash flow 3. Cash flow.
Then of course: Are we meeting our goals and how are our returns for our investors.

11. What's your approach to providing transparency to the board of directors?

This may sound very radical but I am a big believer in being completely transparent with everyone, including managers, directors customers and clients. How you do one thing is how you do everything. If you are sneaky in one area of business or your life you will be hiding things in all areas of your life. Most of our mothers were correct when they taught us : Treat people how you'd like to be treated. Do you like when people are hiding things for you or not. The answer is generally no. So if you don't' like people who are hiding things or being sneaky don't do it together. Be transparent.

12. How do you manage conflicts at workplace?

Most managers manage conflicts by avoiding them and hoping they go away. The best way to manage conflicts is dealing with them immediately. Usually it is not what it seems to be. People get hurt emotionally about something and they usually take out on someone or something else. The key to resolving conflicts is listening , listening and listening to what is really the root cause of the problem. What is it that is really bothering you?
Most people will feel 80/90 percent better just by communicating the problem. Awareness of the problem is usually 90 % of the cure.
Then of course you can always take action and fix the conflict. However usually if you ask the people for solution they will give you a pretty fair one.

13. What's the tough decision you ever made? What did you learn?

The toughest decision I ever had to make in business is letting the right people, deciding who to work with and whom not to work with.

---
Robert Shemin is the New York Times bestselling author of How come THAT Idiot's Rich and I'm Not? He is a CNN and Fox news wealth expert and international speaker.

# # #