Right Leader, Right Time: Discover Your Leadership Style for a Winning Career and Company
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Right Leader, Right Time: Discover Your Leadership Style for a Winning Career and Company
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Overview
"Jordan and Wagner write with clarity and energy throughout, and businesspeople who seek to more fully understand the nature of their leadership style are likely to learn a lot." - Kirkus Reviews
"Right Leader Right Time is an excellent overview of the skills needed both to launch a new business or improve an existing one. Robert Jordan and Olivia Wagner offer a crucial insight - that there is no on formula for success nor one style that fits all situations. Instead they offer four styles - Fixer, Artist, Builder and Strategist - and explain the particular talents that each has to offer. Above all, they combine their theory with numerous real world examples that prove their point. In a world of electronic immersion and global tribes, Right Leader Right Time is the right book at the right time." - JAMES RICKARDS, Author, National Best Sellers Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis, and The Death of Money.
How is it that some leaders win brilliantly and repeatedly, while others struggle to reach their full potential?
Over a decade, Robert Jordan and Olivia Wagner set out to answer this question, interviewing thousands of leaders and matching top executives with struggling or high-growth organizations, learning first-hand what separated the rockstars from the rest.
In Right Leader Right Time they identify four unique leadership styles—Fixer, Artist, Builder, and Strategist (FABS)—that when applied to the right role at the right time, skyrocket success for both the leader and the organization.
Learn your FABS leadership style and discover a framework that will elevate you as a leader to greater career success while giving a blueprint for organizations to build collaborative, intentional teams.
Right Leader Right Time is filled with insights and inspiration including:
- Real-world stories, winning habits, and techniques from more than 120 leaders who show the mindset, approach, and drive associated with Fixers, Artists, Builders, and Strategists (which one are you?)
- In-depth profiles on the career journeys of four leaders who have achieved outsized success by embracing their unique leadership talents
- Checklists to quickly identify your dominant and secondary leadership styles
- The three pillars that unite FABS leaders and help companies match the right leader, in the right role, at the right time
It’s time to find the key to acting in alignment with your highest and best use – because that’s where the magic happens.
BONUS: Take the FABS Leadership Assessment at www.RightLeader.com to discover your leadership style and see how acting in your best mode powers you for success in particular organization, stages, and situations. Embrace the career you’ve dreamed of!
Robert Jordan and Olivia Wagner are principals in InterimExecs, a Chicago-based company that specializes in placing the right leaders in the right positions at the right time.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781722526818 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | G&D Media |
| Publication date: | 03/29/2022 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Olivia Wagner co-founded InterimExecs and directs the organization, matching growing or troubled companies with top tier executive talent around the globe. Wagner previously built the interimCEOinterimCFO network from a home-grown website to a robust social network with thousands of members. She directed publication of various ebook, website, and marketing initiatives and edited "How They Did It: Billion Dollar Insights from the Heart of America". In conjunction with the book she led a national event series, the Entrepreneurial Bash, which drew hundreds of attendees and over 30 co-hosting organizations.
Read an Excerpt
Introduction to FABS Leadership Styles
Think of a time you felt completely in your element leading an organization, team, or project. You were energized by the work and by the challenges in front of you. You knew you were the best person for the job and your results proved it.
Maybe you are in a role that gives you that feeling right now. Or you might feel a bit uneasy and have a hard time coming up with an answer. Maybe even envious of people who have been able to get in that zone or reach that high peak in their work. No matter what your reaction, if you desire to become a better leader, we tell you this: you are in the right place. We are going to help you discover how to magnify your strengths as a leader so you can be more effective in your career and the companies you lead.
Leadership is at the core of how organizations succeed or, more often than not, fail. So how is it that some leaders succeed brilliantly and repeatedly, while many others fail to deliver the goods? This question has been the driving force in our quest to work with and invest in only the best leaders and organizations, culminating in our research, interviews, and in the writing of this book.
A little bit of background about us, your coauthors, first. Robert Jordan launched his first company at the age of twenty--six, when he set out to create Online Access, the first magazine to cover the quickly evolving world of online services, computer bulletin boards, and the internet. It was a bumpy ride. Running out of cash. Sleepless nights. Going bust after just two years, then showing up in federal bankruptcy court to bid and buy back the assets to start again. The magazine ultimately skyrocketed onto the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies before it was sold to a big publishing company.
But even at the best part of that journey, he was a jack--of--all--trades, and it was frustrating being spread too thin. The experience did lead, however, to discovering the exact roles and responsibilities where he excelled, and more importantly—much more importantly—learning the value of partnering and coming to trust other leaders for their unique forms of genius. Following the sale of the magazine, Robert set out to help other owners and investors launch tech products and ultimately sell to strategic buyers.
In 2009 Robert teamed up with a new graduate from the University of Michigan, Olivia Wagner, to launch a worldwide network for what was then an underground community of interim and project--based executives. The concept of leadership--on--demand was new to Olivia, but what began as a job turned into a calling to help organizations tackle big challenges by matching them with great leadership resources. But how to ensure a successful match was made? We set out to discover the holy grail—the secret or elusive qualities, skills, mindset, and abilities that differentiate the ordinary from the extraordinary.
We had to know: What causes off--the--charts great performance, far above the average?
Identifying Inspiring Leadership
Our journey to identify the DNA of inspired and inspiring leadership took us on parallel tracks. We wrote and published How They Did It: Billion Dollar Insights from the Heart of America, a book of forty--five Q&A interviews with company founders who each launched from scratch, grew, and sold a company for $100 million or more, or IPO’d at $300 million or more.
In interviewing luminaries for How They Did It including Joe Mansueto, founder of Morningstar; Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter; and Eric Lefkofsky, cofounder of Groupon, InnerWorkings, and Tempus, we learned that core to virtually every company founder’s experience was a tale of surviving their company’s near--death experiences.
At the same time, we continued to seek out and deploy rock star CEOs, CFOs, and other executives into companies around the globe. More than 5,600 executives showed up on our proverbial doorstep hailing from sixty-two countries and forty-six states from which a select few were deemed to be our incredibles, showing both the results and the chops to push reinvention, growth, turnaround, or change.
Screening out the mediocre from the rock stars is not as simple as looking at someone’s track record. Mindset proved to be even more important. Sure, a résumé is telling of someone’s capabilities, but it’s static and like looking in a rearview mirror. We needed to determine how someone would jump into action—how they are wired for the challenge ahead.
Introducing the FABS Leadership Styles
Sit four friends down—an architect, a chef, a graphic designer, and a financial analyst—around a table on launch day of the hottest new restaurant in town and ask them what they think. Chances are, here’s what you’ll hear:
• The architect might comment on the structure of the building, its space, how the light streams in, and the look and feel of how its configuration serves and welcomes you.
• The chef might focus on the presentation of the meal while identifying the unique flavors and spices at play.
• The graphic designer may first notice the menu and design elements around the room.
• The financial analyst could visualize how much investment went into the restaurant and what kinds of returns success means for the investors.
Your frame of reference colors your perceptions. Likewise, accomplished leaders have a frame of reference that results in a strong suit—an elemental quality or leadership mode—that defines their highest and best use.
In our quest to define what separates successful leaders from the rest, we identified four modes or styles of leadership, each with a unique mindset, skill set, process, approach, system of operation, and drive: Fixer, Artist, Builder, and Strategist (FABS for short). The match between an organization given its particular needs, stage, and size, and a leader operating in their favored FABS mode is vital in understanding how some leaders produce genius results time after time, while others suffer in frustration and defeat.
The Four FABS Leadership Styles
THE FIXER
This leader sees what’s broken and one or more ways to fix it. Fixers are drawn to even the most dysfunctional or toxic situations. They bring order out of chaos, cut through messes, conserve cash and resources, and figure out what needs to be expanded, cut, streamlined, aligned, and organized to create something better. Send a Fixer into a company that is hemorrhaging, and they know how to stop the bleeding. The worse the circumstances, seemingly the better for the expert Fixer. It’s not that this leader lacks sympathy or caring for the team. Far from it. It’s the innate desire to seek maximum challenge, taking on firefighting that other leaders would run from. Once the fix is complete, it’s a dopamine rush only satisfied by the next crisis.
THE ARTIST
This leader starts with a blank canvas and creates a work of art, whether product, service, technology, message, campaign, platform, company, organization, or movement. Artist leaders envision the finished work and are able to enlist, enroll, sell, and revolutionize. They trust their ingenuity, resourcefulness, and out--of--the--box ability to innovate and move a team or organization past lethargy or stagnation. These are the leaders driving revolutionary change, creating the new and different, whether at a product, company, country, or world level. It can be a long road for the Artist whose seemingly crazy ideas may be met with laughter, until a moment comes when the movement engulfs the late adopters and they finally say, “Oh, now I get it.” And then the Artist is no longer the mad scientist.
THE BUILDER
This leader makes foundation and structure for an organization to enter new markets and thrive. Helping ramp up a company, product, or division from small—even a handful of employees—to -multimillion-- or multibillion--dollar success takes a level of scrappiness and vision for what the fully constructed end--product looks like. The Builder loves growth mode, where expansion into new markets and increases far beyond market averages is the goal. They have an innate ability to build teams and create systems and processes from scratch. A master Builder is a huge asset to organizations that need help getting past a ceiling in their growth, but they may not necessarily stick around when markets and systems become mature and established. Once size, maturity, and complexity of the organization has moved beyond a personal span of control, Builders tend to hand off to explore the next market opportunity.
THE STRATEGIST
This leader operates at scale, leading an organization with a diverse agenda, navigating complexity where direction is far beyond their personal span of control. Strategists enhance structure, fortifying repeatable, defensible systems with long--term competitive advantages. Steady and detailed in approach, they provide strategy that an organization—whether a team of 1,000 or 100,000—can be held accountable to. With a focus on metrics, Strategists serve as voice and conductor for short-- and long--term vision that managers, teams, and divisions will turn into tactical plans and execution throughout the organization. Deploying, developing, and conducting the many pieces at play, the Strategist ensures that there is always forward movement, knowing that even established market leaders can be ripe for disruption.
Likely you already see yourself in one or more of these styles. You’ll have ample opportunities to identify ways to up your leadership game as you read into the lives and leadership stories of the Fixers, Artists, Builders, and Strategists in the following chapters.
The labels Fixer, Artist, Builder, and Strategist may sound obvious, but when you dive deeper into each style, it’s amazing how distinct they are. The differences among successful styles are so wide you could drive a truck through them. What is fertile ground for one leader would be a disaster for another. Different stages in an organization’s evolution call for unique leadership styles and capabilities. Match the right leader in the right mode with the right organization, and magic can happen.
To more rigorously begin to prove or disprove these four modes, we interviewed seventy--five successful leaders, some well known and others who flew under the radar, including a handful of psychologists and experts on leadership, as a sanity check.
A pattern emerged. As we explored leadership approaches and track records, we also looked at the choices that each leader made in determining their best career track. The results were telling. Time and again, we saw that success was never one size fits all.
No one, no matter how talented, was best in all situations. The most effective leaders did not try to be all things to all people. They knew their strengths.
Your Highest and Best Use
We consumers demand specialization and deep expertise in most aspects of modern life. In the legal profession there are at least twenty separate disciplines, for example, from bankruptcy to corporate to criminal law, entertainment, labor, tax, personal injury, and intellectual property. Each its own specialty, requiring the best in each field to keep learning, practicing, improving—lifelong.
In healthcare there are 120 specialties, from anesthesiology, cardiology, and dermatology to immunology, oncology, neurology, pediatrics, and urology. The benefits of such specialization over the past seventy--five years are so vast as to be astounding, from better health to relief from pain and suffering to dramatically increased longevity.
We are now in such a beneficial place that you would no more expect your obstetrician to operate on your heart than a criminal defense attorney to file patents for you.
Why then, in the management of organizations, is the exact role and application of a leader still so ill--defined?
We applaud the appearance of an all--encompassing skill as, well, all--encompassing. But it is not the same as highest and best use, or the feeling we get when we’re operating in a role that leads to feelings of endless expansion, fascination, learning, flow, accomplishment, capability, and never--ending improvement.
Power comes from recognizing, accepting, and acting wholeheartedly in alignment with your unique wiring. This alignment, however, need not be selfish in the sense of accounting only for yourself. Effective leaders tap into their best abilities and operate in their most authentic expression of their own style of leading, while showing qualities of loyalty, mentoring, and sacrifice. This excellence is a force multiplier everywhere from the boardroom to the shop floor; from the surgical operating suite to the halls of Congress; from a soccer field to a social network.
Rejecting One Size Fits All
We observe time and again executives firing on all cylinders, diving into a dominant FABS leadership style, not hunting around the dial searching for anything other than their intrinsic self. The opposite are those who spread themselves thin, force--fitting into all kinds of situations, personas, and roles.
For the ambitious, the temptation is real. The more accomplished we become, the more we can and should stretch. All well and good. But saying yes to any opportunity that comes our way, trying to expand in all directions, all competencies, and performing equally well no matter what? That tactic only works until it breaks.
“We can customize our behaviors, but it’s a catch--22,” says leader-ship expert and organizational psychologist John Behr. “We want to be realistic and learn to give and take in our organizations or in our life, but not give or take in a way that’s not at least fairly close to an authentic expression of ourselves. Otherwise it’s not sustainable.”
With some rare exceptions. Winston Churchill was a master Fixer, Strategist, and Artist. His speeches and broadcasts at the onset of World War II proved him as a word painter of the first order, not only keeping up Britain’s resolve, but convincing a withdrawn, isolationist United States to enter the war. Sheer artistry in language. Churchill’s canvas was the Western world.
Great leaders are rich with abilities brought to bear as the situation demands and with seeming excellence and authenticity no matter the challenge. Nonetheless, we suggest leaders have a dominant, go--to mode that becomes richer, more powerful, and valued over time and across accumulated experience. Voters threw Churchill out of office immediately on the triumphant close of World War II. The Fixer was out. They were sick of war.
No leader is perfect in all situations.
In our work screening executives, we often see leaders who should be at the most powerful point in their career, instead flailing around, saying they can do it all, when in reality their focus is not focus, but rather a diluted hodgepodge of skills and desires, preventing them from real clarity and an ability to reject what is not a fit.
When we are honest with ourselves, it is easier to acknowledge that while we can, in fact, weave in and out of different roles as an organization grows, pivots, and hits inevitable bumps, we don’t enjoy all modes equally well; and more to the point, we don’t excel equally.
Testifying at a trial in July 2021 to defend his decision to combine Tesla and Solar City, Elon Musk was asked about running the company day--to--day. “I rather hate it and I would much prefer to spend my time on design and engineering, which is what intrinsically I like doing,” he responded.
He sums up in one sentence what we have found is the key mindset that over 50 percent of all leaders get wrong over the course of their careers. Musk was candid in both what he hated, and what he knew of his intrinsic nature—what he was drawn to like iron filings to a magnet. He knew himself.
Most importantly, it’s the stakeholders around us who can see the variability of results and know, sometimes better than we do, where we shine brightest and where we tend to fade.
“If the leader is poorly aligned with the situation, that is going to be a problem from day one until the end,” says Fixer and business saver David Johnson. “I think it’s incumbent on every leader when they look at a situation to not only be able to advocate for themselves and say ‘Yes, this is exactly what I do, I’m the best person for you,’ but also to say, ‘This is too far afield for me. This is not the thing that I am best at.’”
Cutting Off Options
Successful people make career decisions that cut off options. The word decide comes from the Latin for “to cut off.” You might feel that your first job was an accident or stroke of luck, but when you look back on a successful career, choices over time become more intentional. It’s as if a magnetic attraction was pulling at you, to encourage, nurture, and advance one path over another, one type of work, role, or place over all others.
Troy Henikoff is a seasoned company Builder who cofounded SurePayroll, the first internet payroll service in the US. While Henikoff loved the early days of launching and growing SurePayroll, as the company got larger and larger, both he and his board realized he was a much better founder than CEO. It took a lot of soul searching, but he recognized that moving on to his next endeavor was best for him and for the future of the business.
“If I know I’ve got to do a task to get to see the business successful, I will do it,” Henikoff says, “but I woke up one day realizing that we had eighty employees and I was spending all my time managing managers. I much preferred rolling up my sleeves and getting dirt under my fingernails working with customers and creating products than being a CEO.” Good move. The company was acquired by Paychex in 2011.
Now if at this point you’re thinking, Oh, I get it, they’re saying I’ve gotta stay in my lane? the answer is no. You determine your lane, your route, your life trip, and it could have lots of detours or dead ends. But at some point, success demands you find your on--ramp, your personal freeway, maybe an Autobahn with no speed limit whatsoever.
We also aren’t saying that you should end up performing like everyone else. Far from it. Four types of nucleotides make up the DNA of all biological forms: adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. Whether it’s your aunt Margaret, your pet poodle, or an oak tree, just these four nucleotides repeat in combination billions of times to produce all flora and fauna in every wildest variation. The four FABS modes typify every leader, but to infinite degrees of variation.
Underlying all of this is the feeling of being enough, of becoming confident in your style of leadership, to know the areas you are drawn to and the areas that do not serve you. That is enough. It is not settling for less, or rationalizing. But it is a determination to not be all things to all people.
How to Use This Book
If you can recognize the right opportunities for you, and the right moments to bring in complementary skill sets around you—or exit to the next project, team, client, venue, or venture—our bet is that you will find more success, more fulfillment, and more love of the game. We know, it’s easier said than done. Read on. You’re going to hear from a wide variety of leaders how they did it. Leaders forge a path, no matter what, and seek opportunities that play to their best mode, and reject what does not feel like their highest and best use.
Right Leader Right Time breaks into four major chapters, one each for Fixer, Artist, Builder, and Strategist. Within these chapters are sections including an in--depth profile on one leader operating in that style, an overview of traits, and finally a look at leaders in action and the unique habits and approach each style exemplifies. In chapter 5, we consider the three core principles that are the foundation for all FABS leadership style success and how they could apply in your organization.
Some of the examples in the pages that follow may sound superhuman or just ridiculously successful, yet no one started that way. We spoke with a mix of executives in the C--suite, midlevel managers, and small business owners. Working to become a better leader applies whether you direct the efforts of 10,000 or just one other person, and whether you are driving for leadership of a big team or are determined to stay lean and nimble and outsource as much as possible.
Our goal is to provide insights into your own best and highest work, igniting a spark—a nudge—toward bigger and better opportunities and more significance in the organizations you work with and care about. We hope you feel even more empowered to leave your positive stamp on the world. To reinforce your path to peace of mind and fulfilling your soul’s desire.
If you want to discover more about your specific mode of leadership, you can visit RightLeader.com and take the FABS Leadership Assessment. We also pose questions for you in the chapters that follow to help you explore and determine your primary leadership style. Whether you wish to assess your own style in this book or take the FABS Leadership Assessment online, it’s game time.
Which mode best describes your leadership style, how do you reinforce that, and how do you surround yourself with the best mix of other resources? Let’s dive in.
1.
The Fixer
A Fixer Story: Making the Impossible Save
Though only an eight--hour drive from Bucharest to Arad, Romania, it felt like ages to Eric Kish who was now sitting face--to--face with the Bulibasha—the King of the Roma (informally known as the Gypsies). Adrenaline was pumping as he began the negotiation of a lifetime for the only thing that could save his now dying company. The Bulibasha held all the cards, and Kish knew this would determine the fate of his company—and career.
Kish had taken over an oil refinery just weeks before, a hulking complex of buildings and machinery in Bucharest, Romania. Formerly the crown jewel of the communist country’s efforts to produce its own gasoline and petrochemicals, the state--owned refinery called Petromidia was acquired out of bankruptcy for $7 million cash by a private investor group, and it was Kish’s job to do the impossible: save it.
The company had been run as a virtual dictatorship for the previous forty years. It was a culture where, Kish says, “You did not open your mouth unless you were given permission.” There was a half billion dollars in overdue debt, negative equity, and the livelihood of 3,600 people was now in his hands. The devastation of September 11 subsequently hit, and all refining margins plummeted, so that for every ton of oil they processed, they lost money.
Most people would run as fast as they could in the opposite direction. Kish jumped at the opportunity. “I’m restless,” he says. “Show me a challenge, I sleep on it for a night, and next day I’m like, screw it, let’s do it.” It was that attitude that got him into the turnaround business to begin with. When an investor approached Kish saying he wanted to buy and turnaround all the bankrupt refineries in Eastern Europe, Kish didn’t think twice. “I just said, ‘Absolutely, I’m in.’”
Soon after he took control of Petromidia, the situation got worse. Permits to run the refinery were expiring in two months, causing the plant to shut down. Even after getting the plant back up and running a few months later, bigger problems loomed.
“Boss, we have a problem,” came the voice over the telephone on a Saturday morning. A twenty--story--tall filtering tower, which was vital for turning crude oil into gasoline, had exploded under water pressure testing and was now nothing but a heap of scrap metal, destroyed beyond repair. No tower, no plant. No plant, no oil.
It seemed to be the final nail in the coffin. A new tower would take twelve months to manufacture and maybe another four months to install. They couldn’t survive a year and a half, let alone just a few months.
Kish recalled his time serving in the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, where he learned to develop what he believes is his strongest leadership trait: adaptability. “You train for perfection, but you expect the plan to go wrong immediately,” Kish says. “When things are moving so fast you get disrupted out of the blue, the only thing that will keep you alive is adapting to your situation and your actions to whatever is happening around you.”
It was this training that gave Kish the tools to start changing the culture, to prepare the organization to face the unexpected. By empowering his team to think and act on their own, he knew they stood a chance of digging their way out of the chaos. After the tower explosion, he launched meetings to brainstorm the craziest ideas they could dream up. His goal was to tap the brainpower of everyone and anyone at the refinery. Whether by method or luck, hope arrived from the maintenance department.
The maintenance engineer ducked his head into Kish’s office saying he had an idea. He had learned that an old refinery was being cut up at a scrapyard owned by the Roma, a tribe of nomadic people in Eastern Europe who also happened to control the scrap metal trade. Might they have a filter tower still intact? Just days later Kish found himself in Arad, Romania, at the grand house of the Bulibasha—the King of the Roma.
The Roma arrived in Europe a thousand years ago with traditions dating even further back. You cannot get married without the approval of the Bulibasha, and any talk of business could not happen without time to eat, drink, and socialize. There were twenty Roma in the room, and though Kish felt the ticking down of the hours working against him, he knew they would not trust him unless he respected their customs. Dinner spanned five hours, but as luck would have it, Kish was able to trade many stories about his father who was born just 100 kilometers north of Arad on the Hungarian border.
On the second day, business could be discussed after a heavy breakfast that started with a Transylvanian specialty, palinka. The Roma pride themselves on the strength of this alcoholic drink, but to keep a clear head and not offend his host, Kish pretended to sip the boozy breakfast.
Finally, the Bulibasha put his cards on the table. He wanted $200,000 for the massive tower of shiny metal he had in his possession. Kish knew that a new tower would come with a hefty $2 million to $3 million price tag, so it was a good opening offer. He also knew that the region operated by what they called the Turkish style of negotiation, meaning you bargain for everything. The offer was just an opening price, and if he showed the slightest hint of relief or acceptance, he was dead in the water.
“Forget it, I’m leaving,” he said, as he got up and moved to the door.
The Bulibasha rose as well, saying “No, sir, I see you are a serious businessman. What if I give you two towers for $200,000?”
It was everything Kish could do to not react. With a blank expression, he turned around and asked, “What do you mean two towers?” The Bulibasha explained that they had two identical towers that he could offer up to Kish for the right price. This would completely change the picture for the refinery. With two towers they could increase capacity fourfold to extract sulfur out of gasoline. It would be a huge step forward.
The game continued over three days of negotiation, leading to the purchase of two towers and creating a completely new and bright future for Petromidia.
After restructuring the mountain of debt and increasing automation, operating efficiencies rose and sales came in at $1.2 billion. Production costs had come down 65 percent while revenue and production more than tripled. In just three years, the company had massively turned around and was ready for its public debut. In 2004 they IPO’d at a valuation of $450 million, an eye--popping return on the initial $7 million investment.
Most telling of a great Fixer is how they approach the team, especially during periods of uncertainty or distress. Many so--called expert turnaround executives have only one playbook: slash and burn, cut as many heads as possible. At Petromidia 3,600 lives hung in the balance, an employee count way in excess of the needs of a modern refinery, which seldom requires more than 400 workers to run well.
Kish assigned 550 employees to the refinery, and then came an act of brilliance on the part of the team. They split up the company into eight separately branded operating entities. Each had its own mission, which was first and foremost to support the group. But each entity now had a second mandate: to face outward to the market, providing their own services and generating customers independently. He set a goal that within five years each one of the new companies had to generate 50 percent or more of their revenues outside the group by mastering a market, whether it was distribution of oil or retail sales. The strategy worked so well that everyone who wanted to stay, could stay.
Kish didn’t stop there. Six additional acquisitions and turnarounds followed to create the largest oil company in southeastern Europe, eventually acquired in 2008 for $3.8 billion.
EARNING ATTENTION, FAST
A Fixer at heart, Eric Kish is energized at first sight of a troubled situation. He is now working on his twelfth turnaround. The bigger the challenge, the better.
The Fixer enters when a company’s cash flow tanks, fraud is suspected, morale is in the toilet, the board is fighting, or market forces cause a crash in demand for goods or services. Fixing doesn’t mean pointing fingers, barking orders, or chopping heads. True Fixers have refined their ability to listen carefully, to assemble a winning team, to collaborate and diagnose the root of the problem, to put controls in place, and to mentor the team that will sustain long--term company health.
After the success of Petromidia, Kish told the Wall Street Journal, “Don’t bother speaking to me about pressure, temperature or any technical data. Speak to me about dollars; that’s the language I understand.”
When an organization is running out of money, or if the end of the runway from investors is looming, Kish argues it’s actually easier to manage a turnaround. When the Fixer shows up, everyone knows that much of what was taken for granted will change, so you don’t really have to explain to people that change is coming. You have their attention.
“It’s like you have cancer and you’re trying an experiment that was never done, because what could be worse?” he says. “You have a free hand at experimenting that, in normal circumstances, a board would probably say no.”
It’s that makeup that attracts Kish to distressed and dire situations. “Look, stress is everywhere,” he told us when we interviewed him for this book. “The question is how you manage it. In the midst of crisis, when everything falls apart around you, the most important thing is to remain calm. Don’t rush into things. Have confidence.”
You could say Eric Kish’s upbringing was a proving ground or foreshadowing for his chosen career. Growing up in communist Romania, he thought he was doomed to work in a government--assigned job. He’d already had a stint in compulsory military service in the Romanian Army, which he describes as “stupid beyond belief.” He couldn’t stand the thought of a forced career at low wages, so while studying electrical engineering at the national university, he sang and played lead guitar at weddings for cash under the table. He thought life as a musician might be the career for him until the day he got an unexpected call from his father.
“Son, I’m not coming back,” his dad told him. His father, who traveled a lot for the government had decided to defect to the United States, which meant Eric and his family would be declared the family of a traitor.
“You live in government housing. You go to a university which is paid by the government. You don’t own anything. It’s free, but the government kicked us out of our home and me out of university because we didn’t deserve it anymore,” Eric recalls. He was twenty--two and now the man of the house with an eleven--year--old sister and a mother who was struggling with bipolar disorder. It was a heavy weight to bear. With nowhere to live and no income, he had to scramble to figure out a way for them to survive.
Kish grew up reading about Israel and knew of his mother’s Jewish heritage but could never move there because it would be the end of his father’s career. Now that his father was safe in the US, all bets were off. He showed up at the Israeli Embassy asking if they had a way to get him out. They said to hang on for four months and, in the meantime, show up at the Israeli Embassy every two weeks for a cash stipend as a means to survive.
“Those were dark times,” Kish says, describing having to jump from house to house with his mother and little sister, staying with different friends who were kind enough to keep him and his family in their basements.
Despite the hardships, Kish says leaving Romania was probably the best decision his father made in his life for his family. Four months following his father’s defection, Eric Kish, his mom, and sister emigrated to Israel, and Eric—out of gratitude and loyalty—joined the IDF, where he was thrown into another form of chaos: the threat of war.
“In Israel you train like war is tomorrow,” he says. Any morning you could wake up to a completely new landscape. Kish credits his training in the IDF for lessons he applies to business today. “You have to have situational awareness to collect information fast—faster than your enemies—and provide it real--time at the point of decision,” he says. “If the plan doesn’t work, throw it out the door and come up with something else.”
Kish points to what Israelis call front--line decision--making, trusting low--level leaders to do the right thing. In his role as CEO, he explains that he doesn’t have to do everything, but seeks to create the context for those projects and tasks to happen and “trust that my people are well trained and smart enough to make their own decisions, create their own plans, and execute on them.”
Kish doesn’t talk much at the beginning of a new leadership role. He listens and does everything he can to show people that he cares. He has to build trust. “Most of the people I encounter in turnarounds want it to be successful and want to be part of it,” he says. “The commitment levels that I find are extraordinary, and the moment a trusting relationship begins, then the journey is phenomenal.”
It’s this open--mindedness that brings problems to the surface. Every problem is meant to be examined, not to place blame. Find what works, what doesn’t, and how it can be improved. Doing this from a positive framework, the team can go from downtrodden to openly evaluating every aspect and situation. When new problems arise, Kish brings everyone in a room to brainstorm and find the best solution.
NO MORE BEST PRACTICES
“We kill what is called ‘best practices,’” Kish says. “Best practices that work for one company might be the worst practice for another.” He points to the management fad of the 1980s, when the book In Search of Excellence popularized the idea that top companies operate on the same set of best practices. Laughing, he says that just a few years after publication half of the companies on the list would not make the list anymore.
Fixers are attuned to changing environments. When he parachutes into a company, Kish uses the phrase “practices that work for us” with a caveat that a practice that works for them today might not work tomorrow. He advocates for continual refining of what works and what doesn’t. During their brainstorming sessions, the team always has the option to kill a practice and invent something new to move forward faster.
“When new habits form within the company, that’s the measure of winning for me,” Kish says. His main focus is on changing behavior, or what he believes are big--picture changes that can alter the organization’s course dramatically. He concentrates on remaining calm to guide the team through chaos, leveraging its talent and technical knowledge.
His go--to morning ritual is the Daily Standup, where the team meets (virtually and in person), quickly tell what they did yesterday, what they’re going to do today, and if they have any hurdles. Kish says, “It becomes a habit when people automatically resort to that in order to get situationally aware.” When the team was trying to push a new product and decided their cadence was too slow, they increased the Daily Standup to three times a day to get fast--moving software projects done on time and on budget.
He acknowledges he’s not good at everything and credits his strength as a leader to the muscle--memory developed over twenty years in solving challenges: “I was very impulsive. I would fight for everything. I wouldn’t let anyone else talk much because I knew exactly what needed to be done, and it needed to be done today.” He says he operates differently now. “I am missing so much if I do that. Now, I listen to people, enable their ideas, and back them up with force to move their ideas forward. It is far more profitable than just pushing my ideas because I’m the boss.”
Once the organization is back on firm ground, Kish brings in a new leader. His style, like most Fixers, can’t help but look for the next mess to clean up. He describes it this way: “If you can put up with stress, with the ambiguity, and with the fact that you’re always close to disaster . . . if you can navigate that, then the results can be exceptionally good.”
The Fixer Leadership Mode
Successful leaders adopt a style—a mode of operation—as they grow. It can become as distinct as a fingerprint. For Fixers, style is the urge to make things right despite the magnitude of the crisis. Right now. Maybe markets crashed, or some other truly external cause can be cited, but in most cases something else is going on that leads to a Fixer being called in. Within established, entrenched organizations those problems run from corporate malfeasance, to financial losses, to botched boards, transactions, or operations. Not much fazes the Fixer.
Successful Fixers can be high profile or nearly anonymous. The saviors of Tyco, Twinkies, and Krispy Kreme are not household names, but their work has made high stress look easy from the outside. And of course, it’s not always about the corporate world. Peter Ueberroth is widely credited with reversing the course of the modern Olympics, which had always been a sinkhole for billions of dollars in financial losses for the cities and countries hosting the games.
Ueberroth led the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, shaking up the model and revamping everything from the sponsorship program to how broadcasting rights were structured. The first Olympics to be privately financed and managed, the venture yielded a surplus of $230 million, much of which was used to create a foundation to support youth sports throughout Southern California.
THE NEED FOR SPEED
Velocity is mantra for the Fixer.
Peter Murphy, a veteran CEO who spent his career turning around private equity–backed companies, knows this well. “Velocity is the keyword for me,” he says. “I keep thinking about it. I talk about it a lot. We’ve got to increase the velocity in approaching these issues, fixing these processes, developing new customers.”
Speed is key. In the span of just forty--two months Murphy led and improved operations in seven different companies from nuclear radiation detection to automotive electronics to gaming. More than any other situation, crisis needs speed of change.
Lee Iacocca was a classic Fixer. Well known as the father of the Ford Mustang, he really kicked in gear on entry as CEO of Chrysler, which reported a massive $155 million loss on his first day on the job. He fired thirty--three of his thirty--five VPs, replaced ad agencies, persuaded union leaders to accept layoffs and pay cuts, and recruited new executives.
Without blinking he pushed the US Treasury to a controversial decision to bail out Chrysler. His example perfectly highlights the Fixer’s ability to act at speed, be decisive, and do whatever is necessary to save the day. In 1984, a year after paying back the government, the company hit $2.4 billion in record high profits.
Histories of Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander the Great each report how much their enemies respected and feared their speed in battle. These generals could maneuver masses of troops with lightning speed, outflanking their enemies before opposing forces knew what was happening.
Time is always of the essence for Fixers. Everyone claims they want to be nimble, but Fixers really mean it. In a crisis, the fires are real. Organizations feel as if the oxygen is being sucked out of the room. Cash is evaporating, people are leaving, customers have fled, the sheriff is at the door. Peter Murphy says: “Time is always the enemy. Time is always working against us because the longer it takes us to address issues, the more opportunity is lost.”
Fixers are drawn to this extreme challenge in the form of crisis—the supreme point of need in an organization. The Fixer has time and controls on the brain, evaluating the most critical items such as cash burn, declining morale, and how to stabilize critical needs immediately.
“The first month or two, when it’s really heavy--duty discovery, is what I enjoy most,” explains Michelle Barnes who has turned around many nonprofit organizations, ranging from the Tourette Association of America to the largest food bank in Colorado. “You’re looking for themes and threads. I don’t have time to do a hundred things. I’ve got to pick three to five things to do really well. Picking those three or five things is everything. If you pick the wrong ones, the organization’s not going to get healthier.”
Chief Restructuring Officer David Johnson describes the vast information load that a Fixer is adept at navigating through: “All of a sudden everything is on the table—the leadership, the strategy, the product mix.” With change being a driving force, Fixers have to hit the ground running and know how to prioritize.
Chief Executive John Short refers to himself as the company doctor, saying that he is typically called in by the board or someone on the management team to heal the situation when crisis hits. He recalls being asked to serve on the board of Joe Boxer, which at the time was facing default on its bank loans. “There were issues on the board, with the bank, the supply chain and with attorneys who wanted to throw the company into Chapter 11,” Short says.
At the first board meeting, everyone argued that Chapter 11 (bankruptcy) was the only way out. Short convinced them to hold off, seeing that distribution channels were their biggest (solvable) problem. He immediately negotiated with the bank to give them another ninety days. He was appointed to CEO, and within a minuscule window of time, he worked his magic, expanding the product offering from high end to mass market. He licensed the brand to Kmart, which paid $50 million up front, giving him the ability to pay back the bank and get money returned to shareholders.
FOR LOVE OF URGENCY AND ADRENALINE
Fixers love intensity. They love the urgency and needs of the moment. Once that first adrenaline rush hits, and the satisfaction of successfully turning around an organization sets in, it’s hard to turn down the next challenge.
So when John Short got a call from Sunglass Hut asking him to join the team, he couldn’t resist. The company was a mess. Being a public company didn’t help, as the SEC had gotten involved due to claims of faulty accounting. They had also acquired seven companies but hadn’t properly integrated or accounted for them. If that wasn’t enough, the board was in turmoil, with new board members coming in and experienced ones dropping off.
Short spent the next nine months cleaning up the international business, which spanned fifteen countries. Next in line to fix was the US, where he led 1,800 stores, restructuring the company and expanding the product line. The company reached profitability in eighteen months and later sold to Luxottica.
A crisis invariably means that the incumbent leadership has failed or was overcome by circumstances. In a time of intense difficulty and trouble, poor morale within an organization is the norm, and it can seem like there is no way out, no path to a brighter future. Eric Kish notes that in some ways crisis presents an easier leadership situation because it’s more obvious what the leader has to do, and thus achieving buy--in from all stakeholders—employees, customers, vendors, owners, partners, community—can be much faster.
“Fixers not only run toward the burning building,” says David Johnson, “but they must be able to inspire and motivate others to follow them in.”
Peter Murphy points out one of the most critical differences between Fixers and other leaders: “When you’re doing a turnaround, you’re typically not trying to build a lot of structure, but you are trying to implement control. You’re trying to put controls into your processes, controls into your financial systems.”
Fixers have strong financial acumen and an analytic mindset, and yet many come to see their greatest achievements in working with the people around them. “I focus on the narrative. Finance is my specialty, but people react very strongly to a story. It is easy to lose people with just numbers,” says David Johnson.
“I can go in as a Fixer, but the day I leave, if I haven’t made everybody else part of the solution, the forward progress is going to stop,” Michelle Barnes says, pointing to the need to empower the managers and rank and file within the organization. “I’ve got to have people who are willing to speak truth and offer better ideas. This means the organization will grow more organically.”
Fixers seek internal resources to leverage that brainpower, create forward movement, and leave the legacy of past blunders behind. “In short order you have an opportunity to mentor half a dozen or more people and coach an even larger number as you upgrade the leadership team, as you give battlefield promotions to people who were buried under bad managers,” David Johnson says.
If velocity is one side of the coin for a Fixer, the other side must surely read: calm. Despite the storm, to be excellent in crisis requires the calm born of past crises solved. The confidence to know—we can handle this. We’ve got this. In all of our interviews, we never heard a Fixer use the word hurry, despite how obvious the needs must be.
PRACTICALITY FIRST AND FOREMOST
Like many of the best Fixers, Dick Lindenmuth always showed a level of practicality that ingrained in him the view that many of the answers are already in the organization but had not been tapped. “I’m very much attracted to problem solving not because I’m brilliant, but because I like working with people and trying to find out what they think and making them successful,” says Lindenmuth, who reset struggling businesses for thirty--plus years. [He recently passed away and left this wisdom for us all.]. “While I might do something differently than somebody else, any good systematic approach can work if it’s supported, resources are there, and the priorities are established. If the problems and approach are described and agreed upon, almost anything can be solved.”
Fixers tend to be straight shooters. Tell it like it is. In times of disaster, tough decisions are required, and leaders usually find that brutal honesty is necessary to move the needle. “There’s no reason to not deliver full information around bad news or that somebody has an unfavorable review. Their performance didn’t meet expectations. Nobody benefits by getting a free pass,” says Mike Bartikoski, who has spent his career fixing broken supply chains and operations in companies from Hershey and Pepsi to Nestlé and Coca--Cola.
Many successful leaders—about 50 percent of the people we’ve interviewed over the years and for this book—intuitively identify themselves as Fixers. It makes sense. One of the most prominent determinants of a successful leader is how they perform under stress and how they solve problems in times of trouble. The challenge could be anything from team to management, to finances or markets, sales or operations. No matter what the case, it’s anything but business as usual. There was a problem to be solved, and the accountable leader must run into the fire, no matter the cost.
All great leaders run the Fixer gauntlet sooner or later even if it’s not their strongest form of leadership expression. Steve Jobs is remembered for Apple’s brilliant innovation, only made possible by first saving the company when it was ninety days away from bankruptcy.
When COVID--19 hit, decimating travel and tourism, Airbnb could have become a statistic. Instead, the company took fast action, including a revamp in favor of local listings over long distance travels. CEO Brian Chesky was reported saying, “I did not know that I would make ten years’ worth of decisions in ten weeks.”
Tom Britton, CEO of Gateway Foundation, the largest nonprofit addiction treatment center services in the US, described how without warning, Google cut them off and refused to allow them to advertise online. The company immediately spun into crisis mode. “That was a big channel of business for us. It was our entire margin for the year,” he says, recalling that he asked himself, What am I going to do? I can’t force Google to do what I want. Britton and his team went into overdrive, coming up with new ways to promote their services and ultimately fundamentally restructuring their marketing approach.
All successful organizations experience points of maximum stress that test a leader’s abilities. We, however, single out the dominant mode of Fixer as someone who has a repeat propensity and excellence in fixing broken situations, distress, and disaster—time after time. A Fixer gravitates toward the overwhelming and seemingly impossible challenge and relishes in the experience—good or bad—enough to do it all over again. And again. And again.
In the movie Apocalypse Now, Martin Sheen plays an army captain stuck in a Saigon hotel awaiting new orders. He is far from relieved to be away from the terror of combat in the Vietnamese jungle and instead finds himself worried he’s going soft. He is champing at the bit to get back into battle. The Fixer needs the fix.
KEEPING IT LINEAR
Beyond the battle, the Fixer also is drawn to linearity and sequence, typically working on one broken, bleeding, or troubled entity at a time. It’s focusing 24/7 on all--consuming work. Fix it—whether it takes six months or six years—and then move on to the next. The pattern is triage, plan, repair, fix, move on, and repeat.
“Fixers get bored,” organizational psychologist John Behr describes. “The modern age of compartmentalized leadership and increasingly project--based roles plays perfectly for the Fixer leader.” Their success is to work themselves out of the job.
It doesn’t mean everything always goes perfectly. Some situations are beyond repair, and the Fixer ends up disposing of assets, closing the doors, and turning out the lights. So long as the Fixer has a positive track record overall, they’ll stay at it, from save to save.
This points to what brings Fixer leaders to their next turnaround role. “Fixers like drama, but they’re not sadists,” says Dr. Behr. “They don’t want to necessarily punish people, but they do like to effect change in a way they can see. For a Fixer in an organization with some equilibrium, the drama is gone. They don’t usually want to be there anymore.” That means the Fixer leader has to move on.
IF IT AIN’T BROKE, BREAK IT
What if a Fixer sticks around too long or is put in a stable situation? Surprisingly, most Fixers do not take offense to Jim Dolan’s sentiment, “If I put a Fixer into one of my companies and it’s not broken, he’ll break it. Just so he can fix it.” Their reaction is, “Yeah, so?”
“There’s a risk that you would break it because you get your endorphins from fixing things, but I also like to think you can use that need to fix things for good and actually make things better,” CEO Michelle Barnes says. “I like fixing things, but sometimes you’re seeking more upside. That next big bold move might be fixing the infrastructure or changing the culture or going into a new line of business.”
Even stable organizations may need some form of shake--up and rejiggering from a fresh, outside perspective. Peter Murphy thinks that’s just being proactive. “While a company could appear to be doing well, they might be driving toward a cliff, and so a successful company often takes a turnaround as well,” he says. “You’re turning people around, and you’re turning programs, projects, processes around because there’s always ample room to fix things.”
Jim Dolan made seventy--six acquisitions during his tenure at publishing company Dolan Media where he realized, “The Fixer approach is reasonable every time we made an acquisition.” Even if acquisitions were not fixer--uppers, his approach would be to ask lots of open--ended questions, leaving all judgment aside.
“No matter how good your research before you buy, you always learn more after you own the place,” he says, explaining that their questions led to a series of instructions to stop close to a third of the projects and tasks they had taken on, boosting the bottom line five to ten points. That approach became so reliable in growing Dolan Media into a $300 million company that the team started doing it within their own operations every few years in what Dolan describes as a rigorous, evidence--based review.
He sums up: “Over time, it’s human nature to try new things, to fiddle and experiment. You need to clean house once in a while.”
GETTING HOOKED ON PROBLEM SOLVING
Many Fixers grew up or spent their early career in a corporate setting where there was no shortage of needs within projects or divisions. At some point an opportunity was presented to tackle a problem. While serving as President of PepsiCo, Mike Lorelli remembers being sent in to fix another division, Pizza Hut.
The Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo called him and said, “Mike, we know three things about you. You don’t know anything about international. You don’t know anything about the quick service restaurant industry. But you do have a hell of a reputation for figuring out how to grow stuff, and Pizza Hut’s international division is a mess.”
Pizza Hut was stuck in neutral, going nowhere. Lorelli was told to “get his butt on a plane and come back with a report thirty days later” on what he found and what he was going to do about it. Inside of twenty--four months, he took Pizza Hut from sixty--eight to ninety--two countries, passing McDonald’s in country count and massively boosting cash flow.
Every Fixer has a backstory.
• For John Short, it was launching his career at Citibank where he parachuted in to solve the audit team’s challenges when they discovered shady client behavior in Venezuela and then in Hong Kong.
• For Peter Murphy it started in the US Navy, where he saw that flying an ultrasophisticated, complex jet aircraft came with a series of problems to fix.
• For Michelle Barnes it was taking on leadership of Outward Bound, an organization with a wonderful mission that had less--than--wonderful business operations.
• For Mike Bartikoski it was the opportunity at Hershey to restructure offshore operations and restore profitability in Mexico and Brazil.
Fixers figure out they have a knack for solving tough problems ranging from financial distress, to market failure, to bad actors tainting the team. The common denominator is always that the situation is a hot mess, perhaps intractable, and no one else knows how to solve it easily. The challenge proves to be energizing for the rookie Fixer.
The people challenge, the financial intensity, and the negotiations with management or owners, shareholders, lenders, stakeholders—the sheer chaos and messiness of the situation becomes glorious, especially in the rearview mirror, after they’ve achieved the breakthrough outcome and saved the day.
A HIGH BAR TO ENGAGE
Fixers hold no monopoly—all FABS leaders are problem solvers—it’s just that Fixers are drawn primarily to what’s already broken, intractably, and there has to be a high bar for them to want to engage. Mike Zawalski, looking at his experiences from Quaker Oats, Ryder, and Coleman, puts it this way: “There’s either very acute or significant strategic issues, cultural issues, leadership issues, or operational issues.”
Hostess, the 100--year--old bakery behind brands like Ho Hos and Twinkies found itself in need of multiple Fixers when plans and execution continually failed. The company had fallen behind the times, consistently losing money and going into bankruptcy, twice. Everything was broken, except for the fact that millions of people still enjoyed the sugary, indestructible cakes (they’ll find intact Twinkies in landfills in the year 2300, no doubt).
Along came Dean Metropoulis. He had spent thirty--five years saving food companies and revitalizing brands including Bumble Bee Tuna, Pabst Blue Ribbon, PAM cooking spray, and Chef Boyardee. Metropoulis led a massive turnaround of Hostess, modernizing factories and centralizing warehouse operations. It now takes just 500 employees in a shiny new plant to crank out one million Twinkies a day, along with three other plants that produce what took fourteen plants and 9,000 workers before.
Like a sprinter getting ready to go for gold, for Fixers the image of the finish line is set from the start. “The desire to fix is very measurable,” says Peter Murphy, with over a dozen saves under his belt. “You can understand where you are right now and where you want to go, and you can measure yourself as you move in that direction. It’s something that tends to give you—if not instant gratification—as much near--term satisfaction as if you were trying to just move a very successful company forward.”
COMPLACENCY IS THE ENEMY
Creating measurable goals and continuing to push the limits is a big driver. “Complacency is the enemy, and it can show up in the form of early success,” says COO Mike Bartikoski. “In turning around operations, is an 11 percent improvement enough? Is 35 percent possible? You want to celebrate the wins, and yet still preserve momentum, and ask for more.”
How do you keep that momentum going? Fixers don’t look back. Perhaps because of the name, we might think the Fixer’s goal is to return an organization to some heavenly former state where nothing went wrong, and everyone was happy. In a general sense the Fixer does return the organization to financial health and better morale. Most experts, however, would say there is no “there” to go back to.
“I’m not going to return them to the old former state. Never back to where they were because that’s a bad target,” says David Johnson. “My biggest enemy is the tendency to look backward. There is so much focus on what was lost, who was fired, and what the company was ten years ago that an inordinate amount of time and energy gets wasted. Usually, though, we can never get back there. We can go here, though, and in many ways here is better and even if it’s not better, here is the best we can do.”
Of all leadership styles, the Fixer shows the most prominent and visible arc from start to finish, from disaster to success. Almost every Fixer we’ve ever interviewed described their transcendent moment in the same way, each pointing to the moment when the tides shifted in a positive direction.
THE FIXER FEELS THE TIPPING POINT
Michelle Barnes describes it this way: “I love the day I can feel a tipping point when it moves from me being the evangelist, pushing things, to all of a sudden a couple of employees are on the team and being proactive, bringing their own ideas and changing how they run their department or project. I can always feel it, this tipping point where the momentum goes from you pushing really hard, with everything driven by you and your passion, to instantly leading and helping.”
John Short says that, on arrival, a Fixer often has to make bold moves, from shutting down businesses or divisions, to firing people, cutting budgets, and eliminating products. The question then becomes, “How do you keep the management team’s focus on the task, and on cooperating and supporting one another to make the business go forward?” He explains that it doesn’t happen until people feel like they are at bottom, when they can see this is the go--forward team, and that they are going to make it, together—or not.
“When I see the light bulb come on in their eyes—in the brains of the go--forward management team—that’s a great day,” Short says.
Michelle Barnes focuses on setting up the organization to continue to build on that initial success, which could include mentoring and eventually passing the baton to another leader to continue to produce longer term results. “Sometimes I will make someone else the Fixer on the team and I’ll become the support team. Then they’ll keep carrying it on long after I’ve moved on,” she says.
Eric Kish relishes when people start to take steps aligned with his concepts without asking him. “When a new process starts to become a habit in the company, that’s the measure of winning for me because my main focus is in changing behaviors. These behaviors have to become habit so people don’t even think about them when they make them happen.”
To David Johnson it is all about achieving escape velocity. “The plan has worked. You’re not done yet, but you can see that your thesis has largely been proven out. The performance is there, and you have enough momentum to carry you forward,” he says. Pick your analogy: the team was down 55 to 0, or the patient was on his deathbed, but when that moment of escape velocity is achieved, Johnson says it’s a wonderful feeling.
When the fix is complete, it can be a bittersweet moment. There is great satisfaction in a job well done, but the victory can be mixed with a sense of sadness, because now it’s time to move on. The intensity of working around the clock with a dedicated team comes to an end.
“My worst day is the day I leave,” Johnson says. “You build relationships, you have seen a company through its darkest hour. You have promoted a few people and put them on a new career trajectory, and then one day it’s over and you’re not the center of the world and the phone doesn’t ring fifty times and you don’t have fifteen things to do. The adrenaline stops all at once. You’re on a constant feed and then it’s done. You’re happy, but it is crushing.”
And so it’s time for the next fix, the next adrenaline rush. Perhaps like Johnson, the veteran Fixer will take time off for a system reset and reboot, so that they can jump into the next crisis fresh, clear, and eager for the new.
The Fixer Leader
• Linear
• Nimble
• Expeditious
• Laser Focused
• Adrenaline Junkie
• Open Minded
• Impatient
• Practical
• Observant
• Intense
• Straight Shooter
• Heroic
In the Trenches with Fixers
“If I put a Fixer into one of my companies and it’s not broken, he’ll break it. Just so he can fix it.”
—Jim Dolan, Dolan Ventures
Fixers run into burning buildings. How do they do that time after time, seemingly emerging unscathed while consistently delivering winning saves for companies, teams, and investors?
This section called In the Trenches is a deeper dive into Fixers’ winning habits. What they do from the get--go, how they create ongoing improvement, and when and how they will exit once the crisis is past. Finally, our take on these special ops leaders can’t overlook what happens when the wrong leader shows up, the Fixer driven to excess.
SETTING THE TONE ON DAY ONE
Day one for any Fixer stepping into an organization, division, or project is critical in setting the tone for the work ahead. CEO Mike Lorelli sees many organizations facing crisis falling down not just in big ways like revenues and profits, but also in consistent operational excellence. On his first day kicking off a turnaround of a manufacturing plant, Lorelli got up way before the crack of dawn and drove through three states to be the first person at the plant—a move that caught everyone by surprise, but mattered a lot to him as CEO.
“Boy, does that send an electrifying signal through the company and that travels through the hallways pretty quickly,” he says adding that it was crystal clear to the team that the CEO is the first guy in the building, and it’s important to him to walk the plant floor, say hello to everybody, make sure the machines are starting up and everything is running smoothly, and be there to talk through any issues as they come up. Sure enough, a lot of other people started showing up early and Lorelli notes that even small moves like that led to long--term productivity gains.
John Short says his first move is to “talk less, listen more, learn, ask a lot of questions, and understand the industry.” It can be easy for a successful leader to charge in as if they know everything and are going to solve all your problems—something Short refers to as “savior syndrome,” but it’s critical to keep an open mind.
Being respectful of the history of the organization is key. “Turnaround situations are emotionally painful for people,” says David Johnson who knows that stress levels can often be off the charts, so he makes a point to be generous with his time. “I always like to go to stakeholders by expressing my sympathy for the situation they’re in and giving them some time to vent before we move on to how we’re going to fix it. They need that.”
Part turnaround expert, part therapist, part detective, the Fixer meets and ideally bonds with team members throughout the organization to uncover the full realm of challenges. Ultimately, the intelligence from management to the shop floor to the administrative team can be gold mines of information and insight, adding up to a collective genius playbook for saving and reviving the organization. This investigative work also reveals deeper issues, whether it’s a breakdown in supply chain and distribution channels, team turnover, or financial mismanagement.
In his practice of walking the shop floor to ask people what they see and what their main areas of concern are, Dick Lindenmuth immediately worked quickly to build trust among the team. “Staff might say if we had better lighting on the production line, quality control would go up,” he says. “For a hundred bucks you put in a couple of lamps and quickly demonstrate that you listen to people and take action. At the same time the lighting’s better and the environment and quality control probably went up.” He says it’s these small, positive actions that add up while setting the stage for future bigger and more meaningful change.
When Lindenmuth stepped into a family--owned manufacturing company in California, equipment was so broken that the plant was shut down, operations and accounting were a mess, and the owners were facing millions of dollars in losses. He quickly found that people issues were a major component.
“The former managers only went onto the shop floor to fire somebody,” he says. One day walking down the production line, he came across a grandmother—a Hindu woman who didn’t speak English. “I had been to the Golden Temple in Punjab, India, so I just put my hands together in a prayer symbol of respect and nodded,” he remembers. Through a translator he called her grandmother and thanked her for what she was doing. She broke down in tears, saying that she had been there for fourteen years, and no one had ever communicated with her.
THE GO--FORWARD TEAM
Once the assessment is complete, there comes a point when it’s time to start laying out the road map for taking the business forward. That means not just settling on strategy and tactics, but also a go--forward team, which can be a rocky road for the Fixer.
In the early stages of stepping into a troubled business, downsizing or restructuring loom over the proceedings. It’s not a comfortable feeling for workers, and the divide within an organization can quickly become evident.
“Everybody’s looking over their shoulder, thinking, I’m either going to leave and find a job on my own because I can or I’m going to try to figure out how to undermine and kill the other guys so that I survive the grim reaper,” Short describes. You’d think you jumped into an episode of Survivor, where it’s everyone for themselves, but uncertainty is inextricably weaved into the early part of saving any organization.
The Fixer must figure out how to bring the team together, and Short makes a point to be direct every step of the way, telling people to “think big, work small, be frank, fight hard for your position, but when a decision is made, we all get into the same canoe and paddle in the same direction.”
Despite best efforts, even the best leaders and motivators find that not everyone wants to come along for the ride. “These are high--pressure situations where people are asked to do more in a shorter period of time than they probably have ever done in their careers,” Short says. After getting through the tough part of repositioning, restructuring, and identifying who he wants on the team, he says his worst day is when somebody comes in and gives notice. It can feel like a punch to the gut, even for veteran leaders, as they work to bring about some form of stability. It’s never a given that all the key players will stay on board.
Fixers often walk into a situation where they are met with a wall of stubbornness and resistance from those who see the leader as a temporary fixture—someone to be tolerated and simply outlasted. In serving as Chief Operating Officer, when Mike Bartikoski implements a new system in a manufacturing plant, he says, “I’ve actually heard supervisors say to operators when they thought I was out of earshot, ‘Yeah, do it that way while they’re here. When they go away, you can go back to doing it the way we’ve always done.’”
This led Bartikoski to something he calls his Rule of 13. “Unless you repeat a direction at least thirteen times, people aren’t going to really buy into it,” he says, noting that in running operations around the world, he appreciates the value of repeat communication regardless of culture, location, or rank.
Ironically, he has found the value of repetition is often lost the higher up you go. “When you’re dealing with folks on the front line and you have a different crew day in and day out, repeating direction is pretty clear,” he says. “Once you become a director, vice president, or CEO, the thought that you only have to say it once for people to buy in becomes ever more tempting. But you need to repeat and be consistent about those things that are important, particularly those things that embody change.”
One of the main things that John Short communicates over and over is to work small, meaning that every member of the leadership team needs to be intimately involved in the day--to--day execution by leading in the trenches—not by “managing.” No ivory towers allowed.
Encouraging entrenched management to get out of their corner offices and embed themselves with employees and customers can open up new opportunities to restore ongoing improvement. Dick Lindenmuth gave an example of a manufacturing plant where he happened to see a worker demonstrating a safer way to complete a process. He jumped into his car, bought a $50 Walmart gift card, came back and took a picture with the person, thanking them for a job well done. “The individual appreciated it, and the tone completely changed to it being a fun place to work, or at least a good place to work,” he says.
A LITTLE LESS CHAOS, PLEASE
Like any other profession, Fixers come in flavors from inspiring to so--so, where the outcome is mediocre at best. Worse is the so--called Fixer who can’t get past the slash--and--burn page in the playbook. Under the guise of saving the organization, wholesale slaughter could be taking place within the employee ranks. We need to look at someone like Al Dunlap to get at the kind of evil excesses that are possible when a Fixer runs amok.
When the Sunbeam board of directors called Dunlap to take over the failing manufacturer of kitchen blenders and appliances in the mid--1990s, Wall Street took notice and shares jumped up. Known for his ability to rejigger organizations, usually by way of massive layoffs and factory closures, Dunlap had earned the nickname “Chainsaw Al.”
At Scott Paper he paid off the company’s $2.5 billion in debt, in part by firing 11,200 people, fully one--third of the workforce. While some praised him for being able to boost shareholder value, others questioned if it was a hoax—a form of financial engineering that, while maximizing short--term gains, was at the expense of the long--term health of the company.
Despite the doubters, Dunlap was brought in to save the day. He showed no mercy, axing half of Sunbeam’s 12,000 employees. Shareholders loved it, until the SEC got wind of fraud, at which point it all came crashing down. The SEC filed a complaint against the company, saying that “at least $62 million of Sunbeam’s reported $189 million in income for the year did not comply” with accounting rules. Reports circulated that a financial analyst confronted Dunlap at an investor meeting, prompting Dunlap to grab the analyst, place a hand over his mouth, and say, “You son of a bitch. If you want to come after me, I’ll come after you twice as hard.”
From People magazine’s description of him as “The Terminator” to Time’s “World’s Worst Bosses” to Fast Company’s list of potential CEO psychopaths, Dunlap was finally called out. He settled with the SEC, paying a $500,000 fine while being permanently banned as an officer or director at any publicly traded company. Sunbeam restated its financials and entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2001.
Even among Fixers acting with integrity, there can be the temptation to go too far. “Once the problem is fixed, the tiger team becomes dangerous because they almost attack each other,” says Dick Lindenmuth, veteran of twenty--three company saves.
CEO Michelle Barnes acknowledges there is a point when she needs to step away. “I’m all in,” but adds, “if I was at a company for more than a year, I think people would ask, ‘When is Michelle going on vacation?’ We need a little downtime to process. I don’t think the intensity of a lot of Fixers is healthy long term. It’s just too much, too fast.”
In reviving flailing manufacturing companies, David Sheehan realizes that he’s essentially working himself out of the job by improving processes and decision--making, while instilling lean principles among the leadership team and workers. He recognizes that some Fixers get caught in a bizarre type of tug--of--war.
“On one hand you could say a turnaround person like me is an adrenaline junkie always wanting a new project or an important, urgent crisis. The messier the better,” he says.
The flip side of the coin is that while Sheehan likes a mess, he also hates chaos and wants to turn chaos into a fully functioning organization. Once order has been restored, there is this pull to start again, so he says “the worst thing is if you have a person who likes chaos and serves to keep it going.”
THE WHITE KNIGHT
The urgency and intensity Fixers bring is exactly what is needed while the clock is ticking, deadlines are looming, and an organization needs to be brought back to health pronto. Baked into that, however, is a knowing, an intuition of when it’s time to move on. Beyond executing on a plan with a thoroughness that stands a good chance of ensuring the organization’s viability, the Fixer typically puts in place or reinforces a capable management team that can continue to drive forward within new controls and better structure.
Understanding that once the fix is complete, she will move to her next challenge, Michelle Barnes says it’s important that people don’t see her as the white knight. “It has to feel like it’s owned by the team,” she says adding that her job is to credit the people on the team, build them up, and empower them to feel like they turned things around.
Creating consistency within the organization and cohesion among the team is essential for future progress. In a Wall Street Journal article by Sam Walker, author of The Captain Class: A New Theory of Leadership, Walker describes US Naval commanders relying on a concept of “battle rhythm” where they “determine the tempo of briefings, drills, and even sleep routines,” ultimately working to help the crew prevail in crisis. He points to Alan Mulally’s technique at Ford during a massive downturn, which was publicly described as working to eliminate distractions and internal feuding.
“Mulally instituted regular Thursday meetings in which phones, mean jokes, opinions, side conversations and turf battles were banned, and bathroom breaks were discouraged,” Walker explains. “To improve decision--making, he prodded executives to bring along more data and be more forthcoming with bad news.” The end result? Ford’s value increased by more than $45 billion from his arrival in 2006 to exit in 2014.
The Fixer must also foster an environment where good decision--making practices are sustained. Peter Murphy imposes a rule on all of his managers that no important decisions can be made on a Friday afternoon. This might seem like a crazy concept when we live in a 24/7 culture, but Murphy gave reasons why the Friday afternoon habit still works. “On Monday you know that on Tuesday you can keep talking, reacting, pivoting, for one. And on Friday, everyone on the team is thinking about their weekend, the family, the soccer game you have to get your kid to,” he says, noting that even within tech cultures where people routinely work weekends, big decision--making is reserved for weekdays.
Ultimately, the team is encouraged to share ideas and take action on them. At the beginning of an assignment, Michelle Barnes gives the team hope and confidence, showing them that she is in charge and that the ship can be turned. But once momentum and buy--in is achieved, she moves into more of a coach role so that when she leaves, she’s in the rearview mirror and the team can embrace their own competence and capabilities, confident in the future ahead.
The need for expert Fixers is unquenchable, as we inevitably move in cycles from smooth sailing to crisis. Whether it’s financial problems, a sudden market shift, revenue going down, or a loss of momentum, business as usual won’t work, and it’s talented Fixers that are the foundation from which seemingly impossible--to--solve disaster can instead lead to sustained periods of newfound wealth. Choose your poison. Recession. Corruption. Malfeasance or fraud. When the right Fixer shows up and works their magic, it’s a relief and you can bask in the newfound feeling of prosperity and forward movement.
You Know You Are a Fixer If . . .
You are drawn to helping troubled, dysfunctional, and even toxic organizations or situations.
You see what’s broken, and you know how to turn it around.
You can’t help yourself: Chaos must turn to order.
Velocity is your middle name.
You drive for measurable improvement.
You explore triggers that will have the best ROI.
You implement controls.
You make decisions quickly.
Your mindset is financial and analytical.
You are candid and direct.
You have a knack for helping people see why change must happen and the important role they play.
You might be questioned as being the enemy, but could leave as the hero.
Your superpower is calm in the face of chaos.
You are energized by intensity and urgency.
You look for your next challenge once a situation is back to health.