As a serial startup engineer, I've only been in wartime situations since leaving my last big-co job 12 years ago.
I agree with the large paintbrush aim of the article. Singular focus and knowing how to load your gun and fire those 1-3 shots you've got. You don't get 6, or 18 - that's peacetime. You have lots of data, customer feedback etc to show you how to point those few those shots, but that's all you've really got.
The one sentiment I didn't fully agree with was:
> Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture.
This makes it feel like during war time the CEO doesn't have control of the culture, which counter to the entire post, is exactly what the CEO has control of. It's just that the culture is different in peace vs war, just like the CEOs are. Arguably the whole company is different all the way to an individual person level.
To speak to the other threads, I don't think the co-founders of Google were ever good peace or wartime CEOs. I think they rightfully gave up that seat multiple times because it's just not them. And to be explicit, there's nothing wrong with that.
"Peacetime CEO strives for broad based buy in. Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus-building nor tolerates disagreements."
Feel off to me. You're always creating culture, and if you've got good people and a strong culture, consensus flows naturally from single-minded mission focus. No matter how dire the straights, you need buy in from your team. In a crisis, that buy in stems from the mission and trust you've built over the years. Dictatorial decrees without a team that trusts you and a strong culture will cause the company to fail regardless of how urgent the battle. They'll just quit.
I agree with the large paintbrush aim of the article. Singular focus and knowing how to load your gun and fire those 1-3 shots you've got. You don't get 6, or 18 - that's peacetime. You have lots of data, customer feedback etc to show you how to point those few those shots, but that's all you've really got.
The one sentiment I didn't fully agree with was:
> Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture.
This makes it feel like during war time the CEO doesn't have control of the culture, which counter to the entire post, is exactly what the CEO has control of. It's just that the culture is different in peace vs war, just like the CEOs are. Arguably the whole company is different all the way to an individual person level.
To speak to the other threads, I don't think the co-founders of Google were ever good peace or wartime CEOs. I think they rightfully gave up that seat multiple times because it's just not them. And to be explicit, there's nothing wrong with that.