When talking of the loneliness of the leader it in large part refers to those moments when a decision must be taken that will set the course of the company’s future. “The final decision, whatever it is, will be your responsibility. Whether you are right or wrong, you will never know what it would have meant to take another path and that is the burden you must carry.” Jaume Portell is the CEO of Beabloo, a company set up in 2008 in Barcelona, devoted to providing digital marketing solutions to the traditional retail sector, and which a little over four years ago went through one those decisive moments. “We had what turned out to be a big discussion between the two founders about where we had to go.” In talking about it for the first time, he shows the relief at seeing that the path chosen was the right one.
“For the partners you are the one who has to take the company forward, while for the employees you are someone who takes them into a storm when you get it wrong and the one who does what has to be done when you get it right,” Portell tells VIA Empresa. “But this is the work of the CEO. It is very attractive, interesting and tough,” he admits. Almost 10 years since launching the project, the head of Beabloo recalls this turning point for the company. “It was a very tough dilemma; it not only represented choosing what line of business to pursue, but also the leadership of the company,” he says.
Finally, the rest of the shareholders leant towards his idea of not settling on getting the most out of the product, which they already had, but to grow in the field of analytics. Here is where the founders took different paths. “He continues to be a shareholder, he helps us where he can and we have a good relationship. It is still a separation, but we resolved it in a professional way,” he recalls.
Portell: “The final decision, whatever it is, will be your responsibility. Whether you get it right or not it is a burden you have to carry”
Managing the problem
For Portell, the most important thing for a CEO in these situations is “to be convinced about what you have to do. Thinking it through from back to front and coming up with your own idea.” Once you have it, he insists, “you have the certainty that you will not be diverted by strong opinions or during a moment of doubt.”
In situations like this, Portell argues that the team must be protected. “You cannot avoid there being some type of perception. Startups are small and it is easy to notice things. But you try to avoid this by talking about it outside the office, at lunchtime or at the end of the working day.” The rest of the time, he says, the ideal thing is to try to offer an image of unity because “anything else causes a fuss and halts the team and the project.”
Joana Sánchez is the current president of Íncipy and Inesdi, but has spent more than 25 years leading different business projects. As she understands it, in a situation of conflict “you have to minimise the disagreement and inform the team of the result,” she tells VIA Empresa. In other words, the discussion “has to remain in a small committee and later explain the solution and what happened in more detail.” For Sánchez, “the more you explain the better. And therefore, the closer the link to people.”
Sánchez: "The discussion has to remain in a small committee and later to explain the solution and what happened in more detail”
Inform, but not overload
In short, companies are “an ecosystem of people who have to believe in the project and those who lead it.” Thus, the head of Íncipy and Inesdi says she is in favour of a “collaborative management and company.” That means that “you share in the decisions of the executive committee; and when you do so they normally turn out to be consensual.” Naturally, when there is no unanimity, it is the CEO who has to take the decision. Whatever the case, she insists that “an executive committee with different views makes better decisions than one executive alone.”
The businesswoman points out that “in an open culture everyone can express their opinions, but it has to be managed.” It is management that Sánchez puts at the highest executive level where “it is good to reach consensual decisions.” In the end, the style of CEOs as they were before is changing and we now have the role of inspiring and encouraging, almost being assistants,” she points out.
For his part, Jaume Portell says that the doubt over whether to take shared decisions with the team “would not happen if we weren’t in Europe, where we are used to making pacts and finding group agreement. The Chinese, for example, would be nervous about such a thing.” Whatever the case, he thinks that “it is not fair to open up management decisions. In the same way that it isn’t for a head of an area to ask his employees who they think should be laid off. Nor should strategic decisions be opened up.”
Portell: “It is not fair to open up management decisions"
Obviously, another thing key thing for the company is “getting feedback from the employees, to find out how they see their future.” Yet in all, he concludes, “sharing yes, but not passing the buck when it comes to making decisions. Getting it right or wrong is for you, not out of egotism, but because everyone has their own role.”