Good CEOs Balance Certainty with Open-mindedness
I realized something the other day.
I keep getting older.
And the older I get, the more I am certain of exactly two things:
1. There are a few things I know in life, but especially in business, for sure.
These are the things I’ve experienced firsthand; seen with clients over and over (and over). The things I get paid to know as an executive, get paid to know as a consultant.
The hills I’m willing to die on, so to speak.
Here’s the other thing I know:
2. As for everything else….I have a lot to learn.
There is so much that I don’t know. And if I want to avoid the trap of becoming a “know-it-all CEO” in charge of a company that doesn’t grow, I have to stay open to what I know I don’t know.
Recognize that my small circle of certainty is important, yes. But not make it my entire world.
I have to assume that if I’m not 100% sure of it, I don’t know anything about it at all.
And more than that—I need to learn.
That’s the job of an executive as well. That’s the job of a consultant.
Keep learning. Stay curious.
I’ve talked about this before: the more you succeed, the more you will inevitably enter a domain where you lack experience.
As I helped grow my clients’ companies, I found myself entering unfamiliar territory. Together, we’ve grown businesses that are, in some cases, bigger than even my client thought was possible. It’s exciting.
It’s scary.
***
There’s more here than a platitude about being open-minded.
The things you’re certain of: don’t keep them locked in your head.
Operationalize them.
If you know gross margin is a crucial indicator for your business (it is):
- Set targets around desired gross margin
- Measure gross margin via scorecards
- Build processes that support hitting your gross margin
Instead of relying on your ability to persuade your team about the things you know for sure, make them part of the DNA of your company.
The things you don’t know: figure out how to learn them.
Staying curious and continually fueling your own growth is important.
But you are only one person. You can’t know everything. And you shouldn’t try to.
Learn from people who are smarter than you are.
Get those people on your team. Bring their knowledge into the collective expertise of your business to make better decisions.
Where you’re uncertain, adopt an experimental mindset.
You have a hypothesis. Might be right, might be wrong.
Try to detach from the outcome. What’s important is to test your theory.
***
If this was easy…well, I wouldn’t feel compelled to write about it, for one.
There’s stuff that gets in the way. It can be hard to separate what you know from what you don’t.
And even harder to admit it.
If you’re an employee, at any level of the business, admitting you don’t know something might not feel safe.
And for a CEO, it’s no different. Maybe you don’t worry about your job being in jeopardy. But you do worry that you’ll lose respect, or be seen as a less effective leader.
A CEO’s job isn’t to know everything.
It’s to build a great business.
Letting ego or fear dominate your decision-making hurts the company. Admitting you have gaps—and then doing the work to fill them—is always the better path.
Put another way: if you have a solution to every problem, people start to discount what you have to say.
If you hold fast to the things you know for certain and keep an open mind the rest of the time, you’ll earn more respect.
(And, frankly, you’ll get your way when it really matters.)
If you know less, you have the chance to learn more.
Not a bad trade, in my opinion.
