• Jim Bennett, senior advisor to Dix & Eaton and Katzenbach Partners, former McKinsey & Company consultant (and Executive Committee member), former CEO of Employon
• Jim Boland, former CEO of the Cavaliers/Gund Arena Company and former vice chairman of Ernst & Young LLP
• Scott Chaikin, chairman and chief executive officer of Dix & Eaton
• Dave Eaton, founder and CEO of former Eaton Consulting (now Aperion Global), consultant in global competency for multinational corporations throughout the world
• Lauren Rich Fine, former managing director and first vice president at Merrill Lynch
• Keith Mabee, president of Dix & Eaton
• Smooch Repovich Reynolds, founder and chief executive officer of The Repovich-Reynolds Group, a retained international executive search and management consulting firm
• William B. Summers, Jr., former CEO of McDonald Investments Inc.

Scott Chaikin
It’s very clear that the thing that most distinguishes what kind of engagement we are going to have with a company is what kind of buy-in the CEO has in what we are doing.  I know that’s a very important factor for every professional service provider, and it’s been very important to our success.  It’s also one of our primary differentiators.

It is also a major challenge, because CEOs simply have a lot of things to do, a lot of people and issues to pay attention to.  It’s particularly difficult in a profession like ours because what we are dealing with is so intangible.  They can’t touch it, they can’t count it, they don’t always know what it does, so the hurdle is a little bit higher for us. 

What we want to do today is to hear your thoughts on what it takes for service providers in general to gain relevance in the minds of CEOs. 

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WANTED: IMPROVED PERFORMANCE

Jim Bennett
When I was a consultant, the best relationships were with CEOs who thought you could really improve the performance of their enterprise.  What they really cared about was, can you help me be more successful?

So when I think of my longest-lasting relationships, it was because the CEO thought we could help them make more money.  When I worked with Gallup, helping them try to figure out how to do more employee engagement work, the challenge was that CEOs also think it’s intangible, something they can’t touch or count.  So you either had to make the case that this “people stuff” could be proven to improve performance, or you didn’t spend time with them because they were not receptive to the basic argument.  So I guess that making a strong case for performance impact – the performance edge – in addition to the skills that it takes to build trust and confidence, was the distinguishing thing. 

Bill Summers
At the end of the day, most of us who have been CEOs want to have somebody around who can help us do our job better.

Lauren Rich Fine
I can tell you from my own experience as an analyst starting out, the CEOs really didn’t want to deal with me.  They wanted the IR person to screen me first to make sure I had the right number of arms and legs and that I was okay.  They do not want to waste their time with anybody who they do not believe is going to be really helpful.

Keith Mabee
[Client company] is a good example of the need to prove that.  We had a great, highly valued relationship with [Name], the former chairman and CEO.  When he was getting ready to pass the baton to [Name], the current CEO, we knew there was no way he could force feed that relationship – we had to win our way in again with [the new CEO] and his team.  Winning over the team required us helping the whole team with a big win, which in their case was helping build strong stakeholder support as they totally reshaped the company.   

Jim Boland
So you made both those CEOs look pretty good.  You helped them do their jobs.  I think the key thing is providing outstanding service on a proactive basis. 

Jim Bennett
I think one of the greatest opportunities you have to get a CEO interested, when they’re resistant to believing in the power of communications, is actions that could move their stock price.  A second is to get them favorably noticed in the press.  These are a couple of relatively simple things that are performance-oriented, and they get that.

ANTICIPATING TROUBLE

Bill Summers
On the other side of the performance coin, most CEOs also want their service providers to protect the place.  They want you to keep them out of trouble, whether it’s legal, accounting, or investor relations or PR.  Then on the margin, if you can make them look better, God bless you. 

Dave Eaton
I agree that CEOs place incredible value on risk mitigation.  I remember talking to a consulting firm partner in Seoul who said the key for him was thinking ahead to what his clients are going to face down the road because that’s so important to them, and so valued by the CEOs.  He said it was what allowed him to keep clients and to earn a broader role with them.

BUILDING TRUST IS THE KEY

Bill Summers
Most CEOs have an element of insecurity, as confident as they are and as good as they are in their business, because nobody can know everything.  You have to rely on people, but there aren’t many you can really talk to.  That is why when you are in peer group circumstances, you can open up and admit your shortcomings, but by definition it’s hard to do that with your troops.  Giving them circumstances where they can openly communicate is important. 

Jim Boland
A lot of CEOs are very lonely people.  They do not have a lot of people in the organization who will tell them what they think.  And they are looking for someone to tell them what they think the major issues are, and to build trust relationships with them.  You don’t just do it.  It takes a lot of effort, and you build that trust over time.

Jim Bennett
There will be some professionals who will naturally be very good at building trust faster because they are great listeners and “askers” of questions who lead a client on a performance dialogue.  And there are others who try to talk at them and say here is what you do, this is what you should do, and here is what we have – none of which ever works.  What works best are consultants who are skillful at leveraging credibility, reliability and intimacy while keeping their self-orientation in the background, because they are really, genuinely concerned and committed to their clients.  A professional who handles himself or herself well by virtue of their style and performance dialogue capabilities can build trust in a much shorter time than would occur naturally.

Bill Summers
As CEO, there were people I knew and trusted, or who knew people I knew and trusted.  A lot of them were people I met through being actively engaged in the community, people I had the chance to rub elbows with in different venues under non-solicitation circumstances.  I always found that gave me a chance to take somebody’s temperature and get comfortable with them.  So I think the whole issue of relationships permeates everything – and exposure and networking is a critical mechanism for building relationships.

Smooch Reynolds
In thinking about the CEOs we have worked with through the years and the relationships with them, I think Jim’s point about self-orientation and keeping it low is a big factor.  I also think how you resonate with that person counts, and to do that you need the willingness to be a very perceptive listener.  There is a whole broadband of listening abilities, but perceptive listening to me is different.  You’ve got to hear what isn’t said between the lines.  I also think, depending on the situation that you get brought in to handle, you may have a shorter timeline to establish the credibility factor than otherwise.  So sometimes the success of that relationship will be dependent upon the situation, how it’s handled and what the timeline is – crisis versus a longer-term relationship.

Scott Chaikin
I think that’s absolutely right.  For most leaders, it takes a long time to get them to a place where they are comfortable telling you what they are worried about or what makes them uncomfortable.  But if you listen hard you can pick it up between the lines and accelerate the process of building a valued relationship.

THE VALUE OF AN INFORMED, OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVE

Dave Eaton
I think it is extremely important that you can add other client and industry experience.   What you offer that the internal corporate communications person doesn’t is confidentiality, objectivity, other client experience and industry expertise.  CEOs like to talk to someone they know won’t use what they say against them.  There is huge value in absolute confidentiality, objectivity, other client experience and industry expertise. 

Smooch Reynolds
I think that speaks to knowing your audience.  Knowledge is so powerful.  Figure out the head set of the person you’re going to talk to before you walk in the door.  That is a really powerful thing for the CEO, who has very little time and doesn’t really know who you are, even though so-and-so referred you.  That’s the first step of trust.  But you’ve got to already be right there on the brink of being able to be inside their mind before you land on the doorstep.  It’s figuring out how to make yourself and this firm relevant to that CEO.

THE COMFORTABLE CONFIDANT

Bill Summers
Most people want to deal with people they are comfortable with, and you only get the opportunity to figure that out by having some exposure to them in different venues.  I think another issue from the service provider’s standpoint is to go where the CEOs are.  What kind of environments do CEOs float around in where you have a chance to form a casual relationship? 

Lauren Rich Fine
That really resonates for me.  CEOs do just want to interact with peers.

Jim Bennett
CEOs are not going to hang out with people they don’t perceive as peers.  That’s critical to even getting the CEO’s attention.   

Smooch Reynolds
Once you have their attention, I think the most important leave-behind is the notion you will and can be their confidant.  That is something our clients are hungry for, just hungry for, and that spills over into trust, credibility and confidence.  I always want to leave the impression and the view in that other person’s mind that I can be their confidant on any subject matter.

BESTOWED CREDIBILITY

Bill Summers
As I said before, I also trusted people that had the confidence of others I trusted.  In Keith’s example, [former CEO] had picked [new CEO] and he had picked you, so there was a lot of trust there when [old CEO] moved that relationship to [new CEO]. 

Scott Chaikin
Sometimes credibility does get handed off.  [Another client company] is an interesting case.  We had great relationships with CEO [Name] and President [Name].  After both left, we struggled for six years with a CEO we had a poor relationship with.  Then [Name] became CEO.  [New CEO] had been hired by [former President], whom we had a strong relationship with, and I was surprised how quickly [new CEO] granted his confidence.  [New CEO] trusted [former President], who trusted me, so [new CEO] gave me the benefit of the doubt.

Smooch Reynolds
A good consultant also has to be adaptable, because no two clients are alike.  The consultant has to be able to deal well and resonate with different kinds of people, because they aren’t going to adapt to you.  You have to be able to adjust to different leadership styles and personalities.

Keith Mabee
That’s especially the case when there’s a change of CEOs.  At [first client company], [former CEO] and [new CEO]were very different in their leadership styles and strategic focus.  We really had to be adaptable and to switch gears to earn [new CEO]’s trust.

WHAT ABOUT THE BOARD?

Keith Mabee
I’d be interested in hearing from those of you who sit on public boards about how the collegiality of boards has changed and how that’s affected CEOs.  In the post-Sarbanes-Oxley era, they have to be more careful about how they communicate to the board and vice versa. 

Bill Summers
What really has changed things is the introduction of executive sessions at every board meeting.  Where directors might have felt individually certain ways, now those feelings are shared and coalesced.  And that context alone, that meeting of independent directors after the meeting, has become very powerful.  It has led to a little bit of this sense of alienation among CEOs, and I think that loneliness is more of an issue.  The CEO has a more cantankerous board to contend with because you have board members with more exposure and more liability and responsibility. 

Jim Boland
Boards have also evolved too much toward focus on compliance, and the compliance-minded directors are so scared it drives the other directors crazy.  They won’t do anything.  They want to see everything documented and everything tied up and don’t want to spend any time talking about the operations or products or the other things CEOs need to talk about and want feedback on.

GO WITH THOSE WHO GET IT

Jim Boland
I don’t think a lot of CEOs look at public relations from a strategic standpoint.  Even in some of the major corporations I know, I am not sure the CEO looks at that as a strategic tool.  I never heard it discussed this way. 

Jim Bennett
Going back to what I said earlier, persuading a CEO that if you sold more you would make more money is a fairly easy proposition to buy.  But if you are trying to convince a CEO who views communications as a department of people who send out press releases, then building trust and confidence in the communications function or outside communications professionals is a challenge.  You can’t win them over, I don’t think.  So, go after the people who have already shown they are people-oriented and recognize the power of messages.  They are the most attractive clients, rather than people you have to convince that communications is important and can positively affect performance.

MAKE IT ALL WORK FOR ME

Scott Chaikin
When you have all three edges of the triangle, with a CEO, functionary leader and consultant, each of whom values the others, it is the greatest win-win-win for everybody. 

I wanted to close by sharing the comments our late advisor, Dave Hoag (former CEO of LTV Steel), once made when I asked him the same question I asked you today.  I asked about the professional advisors he dealt with and the ones he valued the most, and what made them stand out in his memory.

He said, “I have had the opportunity to deal with a lot of unbelievably smart people, and the ones that tended to be the most important to me were the ones who understood that not every great idea could work in my place.  They took the time to understand what our culture was and what actually could and couldn’t work in our organization, so their ideas were almost always really helpful.  They may have given me ideas I didn’t agree with or didn’t implement, but they knew me and us well enough that they didn’t waste my time with ideas I couldn’t possibly use.”

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