The CEO’s Playbook: Mastering Growth Challenges in Mid-Market Companies

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Women In Motion. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories.

Lee Kantor: Today on Women In Motion, we have Karen Posey, who is the CEO and managing partner of KP Strategies. Welcome.

Karen Posey : Thank you. Great to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about KP Strategies. How are you serving folks?

Karen Posey : Yes, I work with mid-market CEOs helping them drive growth, and I do that through a lot of strategic planning, business planning, as well as helping them do the six things that only they, the CEO, can do.

Lee Kantor: Now, what’s your backstory? Have you always been involved in this line of work?

Karen Posey : I’ve had my business for eight years. And then prior to that, I worked for a previous management consulting firm, and in my last corporate role, I was vice president of strategy and consumer experience for a $12 billion payer, so have had a lot of experience working with Fortune 500 companies when I was in a previous management consulting role, and I’ve just spent a lot of time. I’ve had – I’ve run my own wound care company as a CEO and turned around an IT infrastructure company.

Karen Posey : So I had a lot of experience kind of in that role of either starting businesses from scratch or turning around businesses. So this was just a natural progression for me to start my own business eight years ago and to really work with CEOs, you know, helping them solve the biggest challenges they face because there’s so much that gets in the way of them driving growth.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you began your career, was it – or are you coming at this from an operations side, a sales side, a management side? Like what is kind of the lens of business, you know, that you started out with?

Karen Posey : Yeah. Great question. I started out in sales and sales leadership. So I was in the sales role for probably three years. And then I moved into leadership and never looked back. So I was in sales for the first 20 years of my career and then was a general manager of an IT infrastructure company, and that’s really where I honed my operations skills.

Karen Posey : So I would say that, you know, my real strength, although I certainly understand sales and can help organizations, it’s really helping them drive growth through not only strategies that they use, but also I’m very strong in the operations side.

Lee Kantor: So now that you work with so many organizations, are you seeing common threads that CEOs, maybe mistakes that they’re making?

Karen Posey : Yeah. You know, that’s why I talk a lot about the six things that only a CEO can do. I think, you know, it’s so hard, and especially in the middle market. So when I define middle market, I’m really talking about CEOs. You know, Google’s definition is 10 million to a billion. That’s a pretty big range. But I tend to work – my sweet spot is between 30 million and 300 million. And I would tell you, you know, based on those CEOs, typically what got them where they are today isn’t going to help them get to the next level. Right?

Karen Posey : And so, you know, a lot of them by the time – my business is heavy referral and by the time I’m referred to them, they’re typically frustrated. They’re stuck. They’re really struggling. You know, being a CEO is a lonely job. Matter of fact, you know, loneliness, CEOs that are lonely, 61% of them say that it affects their performance. That’s a McKinsey stat, by the way. But, you know, it’s real.

Karen Posey : And so, you know, really helping these CEOs really overcome what’s getting in the way of growth for the company. A lot of times I find it’s the first team, what I call their first team, which is their senior leadership team. But it also can be, you know, sometimes it’s that they’re growing. I’m working with one CEO right now. They’re growing so rapidly that actually their operations haven’t been able to keep up. And so I’ve really been doing a deep dive with operations. And I did a level of discovery first with employees and key stakeholders to really know where we needed to focus. But I’m really helping them scale up their operations because it was woefully behind.

Lee Kantor: Now, you’ve mentioned a couple of times the six things that only a CEO can do. Do you mind sharing those six things?

Karen Posey : Happy to share it. I talk about it all the time. So, first and foremost is vision clarity. And what I mean by vision clarity, it’s one thing to have a vision, and vision should be at least ten years out. And I think even with the vision, I think CEOs struggle a lot of times.

Karen Posey : You know, when I first start working with them, their vision is that, hey, they want to be the premier this or the best this or number one that. And what I really work with them on is I help them go to the future to see the future and make sure they have the insight they need to really come up with the right vision.

Karen Posey : Because, you know, let’s put it this way, if Netflix would have said that they wanted to be, 20 years ago, the number one DVD company in America, where would they be today? Right? Thank goodness Reed Hastings, their former CEO, really was able to dream out 20 years and had an amazing vision for the company that they’re fulfilling today.

Karen Posey : But that’s the vision piece. The vision – the clarity piece comes in to once you have a great vision, does everyone in the organization know what it is? And honestly, 78% of employees feel like their leaders don’t have a clear direction for the company. Well, I would argue a lot of them, they have a clear direction. They might have a great vision and strategic priorities and core values. The problem is they don’t have vision clarity. All the employees from entry level up don’t know what they are. I mean, I find that all the time and that’s a big problem.

Karen Posey : And if you have vision clarity, here’s why that matters. I just did a keynote last week in Atlanta, in front of 120 high-tech CEOs at the Best of Breed Conference, and I talked a little bit about vision clarity. But when you have vision clarity, companies that have that have 58% greater revenue, 32% higher profits, as well as their employee engagement is 16X, and they retain customers 2 to 1. It’s incredible, the difference.

Lee Kantor: It’s because everybody knows what the kind of the True North is. If they buy into the True North, then every activity they’re doing is towards that end. But if there isn’t clarity, you know, you’re missing slightly and that just, you know, compounds.

Karen Posey : 100%. So vision clarity is first and foremost. And these aren’t – these don’t have to be in order, but vision clarity your – what I call your first team which is your senior leadership team. And this is – the reason I call it the first team is this is another area where CEOs really struggle, is because they have a senior leadership team but they don’t work as what I call a first team. In other words, they all lead functional areas.

Karen Posey : So for example, if you’re CFO, Chief Marketing officer, CMO, you have functional teams you’re responsible for, but the first team should be your priority and they should be working on the biggest challenges the company faces. And a lot of times, they’re not doing that. And so, I really work with the CEO, helping them on the team composition, team practices, and really their operating rhythm because they get that down and they have their priorities. And if they’re fortunate enough to all be in the same location, which is rare these days, but they even need to sit together because that first team should absolutely be their top priority in solving the biggest challenges the company faces today. Right?

Lee Kantor: Now, does that activity – let me interrupt you for one second. That activity – so you’re the senior leadership team. You have a first team, but each of your reports has a first team. And that should trickle down. These same best practices should work throughout the whole entire organization. Right?

Karen Posey : Well, to clarify, the first team is the folks that report directly to the CEO. That’s really what I call the first team. And it shouldn’t necessarily trickle down. The whole point of the first team is that they truly are focused on the biggest challenges that the company faces and that they can work effectively together with the CEO. That’s really the key. They’re functional groups.

Karen Posey : So for example, if you’re the CFO, their functional group might be finance. And yes, they’re responsible for finance, but that truly is their second priority. Their first priority is to that senior leadership team or that first team in the CEO. Does that make sense?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. So that your first team is kind of – they’re the main drivers of change in the organization. That’s where the leadership is taking place.

Karen Posey : Yeah. Well, the leadership should be trickling down to all leaders in the organization. But yes, this is – the first team is the key, what I call linchpins, for driving change in the organization. Because if they haven’t bought into the vision, if they haven’t bought into the core values, if they haven’t bought into the strategic priorities, and they’re not also communicating that throughout the organization, then you don’t have vision clarity. Right? So the CEO needs to do it but so does the first team.

Lee Kantor: Right. So they all – right. They’re all singing from the same song sheet.

Karen Posey : 100%. So the first, the vision clarity. The second is first team. The third is really engaging stakeholders out there. So the CEO is responsible for those key stakeholders in the industry, making sure they know who your company is. They spend time with key opinion leaders so that they’re not only involved, and they keep up with what the industry trends are and the biggest movers and shakers, but those movers and shakers, those key opinion leaders also know what your organization does. So important.

Karen Posey : The fourth – excuse me – is strategic organizational alignment. So that is culture, it’s talent, and it’s organizational design. And that’s very important. And, you know, so many organizations struggle today with culture just because there’s, you know, we’re all – a lot of them are so spread out. So culture plays a big role.

Karen Posey : And even when we talk about talent, the CEOs are responsible for all talent. In the mid-market, they should have a vice president or chief human resource officer, or VP of HR that’s responsible for talent. But where the CEO is responsible is for the highest-value roles in the organization. So strategic organizational design really focuses on talent, culture, and organizational design, which is so important. So that’s the fourth.

Karen Posey : The fifth is having an effective board. You know, it’s interesting there’s a stat out there from PwC recently that 70% of CEOs rate their boards as poor. Oh, my gosh, 70%. And so, there’s a big opportunity really looking at what does an effective board looks like. So there’s a lot to be said there. So that’s the fifth.

Karen Posey : And the final is personal effectiveness. And I leave that as last because I spent a lot of time with CEOs also on their personal effectiveness. So in other words, they need to know themselves. What gives them energy? What depletes their energy? The things that deplete their energy, they need to be giving those tasks to others in the organization. They need to be focused on those high-energy, high-value things, and they need to surround themselves with people in the organization that is protecting their time.

Karen Posey : The other thing is under personal effectiveness is really understanding their leadership model and perspective. So in other words, thinking about what do they stand for? What won’t they tolerate? What’s the legacy they want to leave for their organization? Right? So that’s leadership perspective. And it’s important that people, their leaders, their first team specifically understand that about them.

Karen Posey : And the third under personal effectiveness is their brand. And the brand is so important. For a CEO to stay humble, show gratitude, and really understand who they are and what they’re portraying is vitally important.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned – you mentioned that 70% of CEOs think their boards are ineffective. Doesn’t that speak to their own personal effectiveness?

Karen Posey : Some of it does. You know, honestly, I find – it’s interesting. CEOs, when they first take over the role, they think that if they have a board that yeah they’re going to need to spend 10% of their time or some time with the board. But I will tell you, that is the biggest thing, that is an eye-opener – I wouldn’t say the biggest, just one of the biggest eye-openers for CEOs, the board really takes, on average, about 25% of their time, and they’ve really got to work that board and help the board understand their role versus the role of the CEO and the first team. Because also there’s another stat. A follow-up stat to the 70% is that 40% of board members are confused on their role versus the role of the CEO in their first team.

Karen Posey : So, yeah, there’s a lot of reasons for dysfunction. It can happen just, you know, not having board members that aren’t engaged; they’re not focused on the right objectives, not having clear charter, not having clear processes. There’s a lot of reasons that that can happen. But the CEO needs to really devote time to making sure they have the right board members and that they’re really helping them guide them on the strategy, not developing the strategy, not involved in the strategic plan, but helping them, you know, just guiding them on the strategy. And the other big part of the board, quite frankly, is hiring and succession planning for the CEO.

Lee Kantor: Right. Well, that’s what’s surprising to me, because isn’t the board the one that hires the CEO? And if they’re not on the same page at go, I mean, neither one of them is doing their job.

Karen Posey : Yes, yes, yes. And you know what tends to happen honestly? It kind of -it happens over time. It’s not like it happens overnight. You get board members sometimes that have been on there for a long time. They’re not engaged anymore. You also find that a lot of times when I first start working with the CEO, their board is just a reporting board, right? So getting that right structure and the right board members is so important.

Lee Kantor: Now, sometimes the board hires you to kind of fix the CEO, or is this something that the CEO is saying, “Look, we’re struggling here and the board is part of the problem”?

Karen Posey : Yeah, it’s I would say most of the time it is the CEO that is engaging me. But I have been engaged twice now by board members saying, hey, we’d love your help. We’re not, we’re not, we’re not confident in the direction of the organization. We’d like you to come in and help them with their strategic plan. And let’s really look at their yearly operations plan. And, you know, let’s make sure we’ve got the right vision for the company. So, yeah.

Lee Kantor: So, now a lot of the listeners here are aspiring mid-market companies, but maybe they’re a little smaller. Is there any kind of advice or low-hanging fruit you can give to an aspiring mid-market organization in order for them to get to a new level?

Karen Posey : Yes. You know, there are – there’s lots of great tools. If you’re a $3 to $5 million organization, you know, and you’re trying to get a strategic plan done, go out. EOS is a tremendous program. It’s really perfect for companies under 50 employees. Leverage that program. Think about your vision, really, you know.

Karen Posey : Some of these principles of the six things that work for mid-market companies would work for smaller companies. The ones that would specifically work for smaller organizations are definitely get your vision down, get your vision clarity down. Make sure everybody in the organization knows where you’re going, what your strategic priorities are, and your core values.

Karen Posey : The second one would be work with your first team. Make sure that your senior leadership team, you’ve got the right team composition, you’ve got the right team practices and operating rhythm for that first team. So important.

Karen Posey : I would say also of the six, focus on your own personal effectiveness. You know, a lot of times I find with smaller organizations, I have kind of mentored startups over the years through the Entrepreneur Center in – I’m originally from Ohio, so I worked with two of the entrepreneurial centers there and worked with a lot of startups. And the personal effectiveness of the CEO is vitally important. It’s always important, but it’s vitally important when you’re smaller because, candidly, a lot of times it’s the CEO that might be the roadblock to a lot of growth or expansion because traditionally they know their widget, but they don’t know how to grow a business.

Karen Posey : So, you know, I always refer back to what investors say. They would rather have an amazing CEO and an amazing first team. So in other words, an amazing senior leadership team and a mediocre strategy versus an amazing strategy and a mediocre team. So, that would be my advice for a smaller organization.

Lee Kantor: Now, what is kind of the pain that these middlemen, middle market companies are having where they – what are some of the leading indicators that, hey, maybe we do have a problem? Is it kind of a plateauing sale? Is it maybe we’re having a hard time hiring or keeping our people? Like, what are kind of some of the symptoms that maybe things are a little off?

Karen Posey : Yeah, some of the symptoms are they’re all rowing in different directions. Excuse me. The CEO is spending too much time, what I call, in the business and not on the business, focused on more of the strategic aspects of the business. When I talk about the first team not working together, you know, everybody’s rowing in a different direction. They’re really struggling with execution. That’s a big piece.

Karen Posey : What other are the common things I see? I also see that, you know, they, you know, it’s interesting. They’re struggling with their first team. They’ve lost confidence in some of their first team members. And, you know, that’s their senior leadership team. I equate a first-team like a family. Every family has a level of dysfunction. You love them, but they have a level of dysfunction.

Karen Posey : The first team is the same way. And making sure you really have a first, a solid, high-performing first team is so important. And a lot of times when I first start working with the CEO, they think they’ve got a pretty strong first team. I get in there and I start working with them and we uncover some things that help them realize that sometimes, and this is specifically in the middle market, what got them here isn’t going to get them to the next level. And they have a lot of aspirations for growth. And sometimes they outgrow people. And that’s hard. It’s super hard. But they’ve got to be able to make those tough choices and make those bold decisions.

Karen Posey : So another thing I see a lot is CEOs lack that confidence to make the bold decisions because maybe they don’t have good vision clarity. They haven’t identified why it’s happening, but they just – they lose confidence in their decisions and they’re afraid to make those bold moves. And I got to tell you, successful CEOs, the great CEOs make bold moves early and they make them often because you have to. Otherwise, you’re not going to – it’s hard to compete. It’s hard to grow. There’s a lot of things pulling at a CEO every day.

Lee Kantor: Well, I would imagine that that’s one of the really maybe an unintended benefit of working with an organization like yours, where you can kind of give them the confidence to make the bold move and, like, you’re kind of taking some of the heat as the bad guy instead of them. Like, this is, you know, maybe they’re afraid, maybe it’s some team member that’s been around since the beginning and they’re, you know, they’re hesitant to, you know, punish, not punish, but kind of there’s a loyalty there that is overriding maybe an effectiveness.

Karen Posey : Well said. I think the other thing too is that, you know, I talked about loneliness earlier. Loneliness, seriously, it’s real. And being a CEO is a lonely job. There’s things you can’t talk to your first team about. You want to be close to them, but you also need to keep your distance. There are decisions you have to make that only you can make. You can’t run a company by, you know, a group decision. There are some big decisions that sometimes the CEO by themself has to make.

Karen Posey : And that’s where I also spend a lot of time. I really help the CEO. I’m kind of – they call me and run those things by me, the things that they can’t share with their first team because they need a coach to guide them on some of those big, bold decisions that they need to make. And they’re hard.

Lee Kantor: Right.

Karen Posey : And that’s a big role I play.

Lee Kantor: Right. And also, it’s kind of your – they can vet maybe the, quote-unquote, dumb idea that might sound crazy, but it might be the one that needs to be made and they might be hesitant to share that with everybody. You’re a safer place for them to share.

Karen Posey : Yeah. And the other thing they know for sure. Here’s the other challenge. The bigger your company gets, it happens – it’s not intentional. But what happens is you start getting filtered information. The bigger you get, the more filtered the information is that you receive.

Karen Posey : Your first team sometimes tells you what you want to hear because it’s in their best interest a lot of times to do that, so you really don’t get a clear-eyed view of reality. And what I give to my CEOs is I tell them the truth. That’s the only way I know how to work with them. That’s why they’re paying me. And that’s the value I bring, is that their first team, even if they ran it by their first team, their first team might have told them it was a great idea.

Lee Kantor: Right.

Karen Posey : And they share it with me. And I’m like, “Well, here’s some things you might want to think about.” Right? “Here’s some holes I see in that.” And they need someone that can be totally honest and transparent with them.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you to kind of become part of the WBEC-West community? And what were you kind of thinking when it was time to join?

Karen Posey : You know, I am originally from Ohio. I’ve only been out in Colorado here three years, and I actually had clients of mine that came to me and said, “Karen, we are a part of, you know, Women Business Enterprise National Council. You need to join. Here’s the benefits.” I looked into it and I’m like, “Wow! What an amazing organization.”

Karen Posey : Well, when I moved to Colorado, one of the first things I did because I didn’t know anyone out here was I made contact with Jaymee Lomax and said, “How can I get involved?” I really want to get involved in WBEC-West, and specifically in Colorado, because I want to help. I’m very passionate about not only helping CEOs but specifically female CEOs. I want to see all women rise.

Karen Posey : And so, I was very fortunate that at the time there was an opening coming up in Colorado. This was three years ago. And I’ve been fortunate enough, and it’s been my honor to be forum chair for WBEC-West here in Colorado. So it’s been fantastic. I’ve met so many amazing people; just Pamela – what Pamela Williamson is doing for WBEC-West and the people she has aligned herself with and her board members. It’s truly an honor to serve because I love where they’re headed and the great things they’re doing for women every day.

Lee Kantor: So who is that ideal middle market organization for you to work with? Do you have a niche in terms of industry, or are you kind of industry agnostic?

Karen Posey : I’m industry agnostic, but I will tell you my background is health care, high-tech IT. And actually, I do a lot for people that work with the government, so any government contractors just coming from Ohio. I have a lot of background working with, you know, Air Force Research labs, NASA, and whatnot. But I can work with all industries. But yeah, that’s been my background.

Lee Kantor: And if somebody wants to learn more and connect with you or somebody on the team, what is the website? What is the best way to connect?

Karen Posey : Thank you. Yes, it’s www.kpstrategies.net.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well, Karen, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Karen Posey : Thank you so much. Really enjoyed my time today.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.