CEO Compass

CEO Compass

MANAGEMENT by Dave Szymanski | Tampa Bay Editor

Entrepreneur John Stewart has developed a new management tool, a wheel-shaped chart that maps out how to get the most out of employees.

From his days in Army signal corps school to his years as an entrepreneur starting numerous companies, Clearwater executive John Stewart learned a management truism: People don't like to be managed, and managers don't enjoy managing people.

But that's what companies and organizations continued to do. So Stewart, 62, developed a new management paradigm. And after 10 years of testing and tweaking, and using the lessons he's learned from starting 14 companies, it is now ready, complete with software and a wheel-shaped diagram.

It's called the CEO Compass and its premise is to give people your vision, let them manage themselves and have middle managers report the progress back to the CEO each week.

The compass is a tool to gather information for the CEO so he can check if the company vision is being followed.

"People don't like to be managed," Stewart says. "Many managers don't like managing. But we keep using force as a way to get people to do things. It's not an effective motivator."

The solution is building a team of self-motivated people, providing a vision and communicating the vision clearly and often, getting feedback to make sure everyone understands it.

Successful companies

Stewart was born in Thomasville, Ga. and went to the U.S. Army signal corps school in 1964, where he was trained to be a network engineer. He served for four years, including two tours in Vietnam. At that time, the military had the most sophisticated telephone and data network in the world.

After the Army, Stewart worked for Philco Ford as an engineer, doing military contracting and traveling the world.

In 1968, the Federal Communications Commission began to allow competition in the telephone industry. So in 1971, Stewart started Florida Telecom, a company in Tampa selling telephone systems. It eventually grew to 30 people.

Stewart and five other executives started a trade association for private phone systems, the Florida Interconnect Association, which got many state regulations changed.

"We participated in the breakup of the Bell System," Stewart says. "We sued them and won."

After getting married, he moved to Atlanta in 1977 and sold Florida Telecom. A year later, he started Megaplex, an energy management and message management business that grew to 150 employees.

Working with Georgia Tech, Stewart developed a system to control energy use and billing for companies. He then developed a message management system that would record voice messages, digitize them and store them on computers.

Stewart developed other companies from 1980 to 1988, including Megaplex Telecom, a phone supplies company in Atlanta, and Megaplex Engineering, a process control engineering firm that did controls for M&M Mars.

Consulting launch

In 1989 he started Executive Power, a management consulting firm in Atlanta. In 1993, he reincorporated it into Executive Works. Most of his clients were small- to medium-sized companies, about 15 employees each.

Eventually, Stewart moved to Clearwater and developed software to assess a businesses. The consulting practice would gather data, analyze it and present a report to the business it was helping.

He started to see similarities between businesses, especially in management. So he started a common master checklist.

About 1998, Stewart came up with a rough version of what he called "the wheel," the business assessment diagram that would eventually become the CEO Compass, a nod to his favorite pastime, sailing. Using the wheel, you gather information on the business which you can use for analysis and a solutions report.

"If you don't have a template, you can't compare performance," Stewart says. "I have a road map, a scientifically proven road map. I've spent many years testing it."

The wheel and companion software are ready and Stewart is working on a series of five how-to books for people at different levels in a company, including CEOs and staff.

"What we provide the CEO are navigator tools," Stewart says. "This shows how the CEO needs to navigate his business using a new management paradigm."

In his consulting work, Stewart would gather information about a company, take the most critical, price it and try to deliver a low-cost, high-value solution. But before developing the CEO Compass, he was doing assessments not knowing what was truly wrong with a company.

When it did come up with solutions in the early days of the practice, it made this discovery: Even though management was often the problem, management was often not affected by the solution. And the solution didn't last.

"That was the ultimate discovery," Stewart says. "Most consulting solutions work very short term. CEOs know this. People turn over. A consultant is there. When he leaves, it is whatever the group thinks.

"Consulting, generally doesn't have a lasting impact," Stewart adds.

Thought shift

To create a lasting impact, Stewart knew that a major change would be needed. And that change was moving from managers managing to everyone managing themselves.

"Managers think they need to be important by managing people," Stewart says. "But people don't want to be managed. And many people don't like to manage. It doesn't work."

So to make the new paradigm work, companies need to carefully interview employees to see if they are self-motivated. Then, the CEO should give each executive a written action plan, the company rules, the CEO Compass software and the CEO Compass diagram.

Managers are encouraged to give reports at least weekly to the CEO. The more often there are progress reports, the easier it is to make adjustments.

"If you use the current definition of management, all those definitions say: Force," Stewart says. "It's control and force. When you force someone to do something, you're really not in control. The true definition of control is good communication."

Accurate communication gives employees information so they can focus on high-value activities, he says.

Stewart advocates letting employees work from home and outsourcing. One client hired telemarketers from Nova Scotia, Canada.

Since he loves sailing, Stewart would like to offer a CEO Compass class on a sailboat, combining nautical lessons with CEO lessons.

One other outgrowth of the CEO Compass and thought shift is the need for fewer managers. About 40% of employees do 80% of the work, Stewart says. So about 60% of the people can be replaced, unless it's a small business, he says.

Since about 85% of businesses go out of business, companies need to consider the new paradigm and look at staff productivity, Stewart says.

Stewart started 14 businesses, some successful, some not. Lessons from both have helped him understand management dynamics. And his take-all-comers attitude hasn't hurt, either.

"I like to do things people think I can't do," he says. "I took on AT&T. I was 26. They were a T-Rex."

One of his guidelines as a consultant is never pointing something out without giving a solution.

"It's okay to say the CEO is in a mess, but you need to say how he can solve it," Stewart says.

REVIEW SUMMARY

Company: Executive Works, Clearwater

Industry: Management consulting

Key: Educate CEOs about a new management tool.