1: “The peacetime CEO does not resemble the wartime CEO,” Ben Horowitz writes in The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers.
One example? “A basic principle in most management books is that you should never embarrass an employee in a public setting,” Ben notes.
“On the other hand, in a room filled with people, [Intel CEO] Andy Grove once said to an employee who entered the meeting late, ‘All I have in this world is time, and you are wasting my time.'”
To understand these contrasting styles, consider their distinct challenges.
Peacetime and wartime CEOs face very different challenges. Businesses operating in peacetime have a significant advantage in a growing core market.
“In times of peace,” Ben explains, “the company can focus on expanding the market and reinforcing the company’s strengths.”
Wartime is different.
“In wartime, a company is fending off an imminent existential threat,” he writes. “Such a threat can come from a wide range of sources, including competition, dramatic macroeconomic change, market change, supply chain change, and so forth.”
The goal of the Peacetime CEO?
“Maximize and broaden the current opportunity,” Ben observes. “As a result, peacetime leaders employ techniques to encourage broad-based creativity and contribution across a diverse set of possible objectives.”
None of this applies in wartime, where “the company typically has a single bullet in the chamber and must, at all costs, hit the target,” he writes. “The company’s survival in wartime depends upon strict adherence and alignment to the mission.”
One well-known example is Steve Jobs‘s return to Apple. “The company was weeks away from bankruptcy—a classic wartime scenario,” Ben notes. “He needed everyone to move with precision and follow his exact plan; there was no room for individual creativity outside the core mission.”
This leadership challenge differs from the one Google faced when it became preeminent in the search market: at that time, company leaders encouraged peacetime innovation by calling for every team member to spend 20 percent of their time on their own new projects.
The bottom line?
“Peacetime and wartime management techniques can both be highly effective when employed in the right situations,” Ben writes, “but they are very different.”
2: Here is Ben’s summary of the differences between peacetime and wartime CEOs:
“Peacetime CEO knows that proper protocol leads to winning. Wartime CEO violates protocol in order to win.
“Peacetime CEO focuses on the big picture and empowers her people to make detailed decisions. Wartime CEO cares about a speck of dust on a gnat’s ass if it interferes with the prime directive.
“Peacetime CEO builds scalable, high-volume recruiting machines. Wartime CEO does that, but also builds HR organizations that can execute layoffs.
“Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture.
“Peacetime CEO always has a contingency plan. Wartime CEO knows that sometimes you gotta roll a hard six.
“Peacetime CEO knows what to do with a big advantage. Wartime CEO is paranoid.
“Peacetime CEO strives not to use profanity. Wartime CEO sometimes uses profanity purposefully.
“Peacetime CEO thinks of the competition as other ships in a big ocean that may never engage. Wartime CEO thinks the competition is sneaking into her house and trying to kidnap her children.
“Peacetime CEO aims to expand the market. Wartime CEO aims to win the market.
“Peacetime CEO strives to tolerate deviations from the plan when coupled with effort and creativity. Wartime CEO is completely intolerant.
“Peacetime CEO does not raise her voice. Wartime CEO rarely speaks in a normal tone.
“Peacetime CEO works to minimize conflict. Wartime CEO heightens the contradictions.
“Peacetime CEO strives for broad-based buy-in. Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus building nor tolerates disagreements.
“Peacetime CEO sets big, hairy, audacious goals. Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand.
“Peacetime CEO trains her employees to ensure satisfaction and career development. Wartime CEO trains her employees so they don’t get their asses shot off in the battle.
“Peacetime CEO has rules like ‘We’re going to exit all businesses where we’re not number one or two.’ Wartime CEO often has no businesses that are number one or two and therefore does not have the luxury of following that rule.”
3: This raises a crucial question: Can a leader excel in both peacetime and wartime roles?
“I believe that the answer is yes, but it’s hard,” Ben writes. “Mastering both wartime and peacetime skill sets means understanding the many rules of management and knowing when to follow them and when to violate them.”
One piece of advice from Ben?
“Be aware that management books tend to be written by management consultants who study successful companies during their times of peace,” he observes. “As a result, the resulting books describe the methods of peacetime CEOs.”
One of the few wartime CEO authors is Intel founder Andy Grove, who wrote the classic Only the Paranoid Survive.
Being a wartime CEO isn’t for the faint of heart. “By my calculation,” Ben writes, “I was a peacetime CEO for three days and wartime CEO for eight years. I still have a hard time shaking the wartime flashbacks.”
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: Am I leading my team as if it’s peacetime when we’re actually in a wartime season—or clinging to wartime intensity when what we most need is peacetime growth and creativity?
Action: Honestly assess whether my current context is more “peacetime” or “wartime,” then choose one specific leadership behavior to dial up (or down) this week so my style better fits the reality my team is facing.
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