Picture this situation that I’ve regularly observed over the years. A CEO is discussing an issue with some people within the organisation. It’s a novel problem with no obvious answers. They’re wrestling with it, thinking it through and trying to work out together what to do.
The CEO is spitballing, throwing thoughts out to test them with others. During the conversation, a thought occurs to the CEO and they tip it into the conversation for testing. Maybe they say something like “It might be worthwhile preparing a position paper to share with the board”. The conversation explores that thought for a moment before moving on. Eventually, the meeting ends, and the CEO leaves, content with the clarity that was generated through the discussion and thinks nothing more of it.
A few days later, the CEO receives an e-mail from one of the people in the discussion. It contains a lengthy memo setting out the position that was ultimately articulated in the meeting. The person has clearly put a lot of work into it. The e-mail notes that the memo is “as per your request in the meeting to put together a position paper”. The CEO has no recollection of that being an action but, after a few moments, the penny drops. They recall their off-the-cuff remark and realise the team member must have taken it as a direction.
Guilt washes over the CEO, realising the person has spent significant time preparing something that ultimately wasn’t necessary – the CEO has no intention of taking it to the board.
The CEO might even feel some frustration that the person took the comment so seriously, now wondering how careful they must be when thinking aloud. What they really want to do instead is to participate fully in the conversation and have the freedom to throw their ideas around alongside everyone else’s. Some of this thinking will be sharp and worth paying attention to, but some will be loose and dismissed by a thoughtful challenge.
This captures what I call the CEO butterfly effect. Like the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings and setting off a chain of events that creates a tornado in a far-off time and place, small CEO comments are often ascribed a weight that leads them to ripple through organisations with an amplifying effect.
Some CEOs and senior leaders will no doubt read this and think, “Great, I wish people would listen to me like that!” Sure, it’s great when you need to make a call on something and for action to follow. However, it also makes it hard for CEOs to have the candid conversations essential to great organisational thinking and clarity.
Hence the CEO butterfly effect presents two risks:
- Wasted effort by team members mistaking off-the-cuff CEO comments as concrete direction
- CEO shyness arising from an acute awareness of this specific issue, leading the CEO to overreact and underplay their hand in discussions with team members
The first undermines productivity and engagement (nobody likes their hard work to go to waste). The second undermines decision-making quality.
These risks can be higher for humble leaders, especially when they’re new to a senior role or, worse still, have been promoted from within an organisation. For humble and/or new leaders, the relationships with everyone else still feel the same. You don’t see yourself as suddenly being any different or having all the right answers. However, others may have an acute awareness of the change and become excessively respectful of your new authority.
So, what can you do about it? There are a few things:
- Set the expectation – Acknowledge to your team that you’re not always going to be right, so they must critically assess your ideas as much as anyone else’s (arguably more, given the often far-reaching consequences of senior leaders’ decisions). Yes, it will often be your job to make decisions and the team’s job to act on them, but the best decisions are made in the company of intellectually robust debate, not in its absence.
- Be mindful – Acknowledge the CEO butterfly effect and be intentional in framing your ideas. Not so careful that you become mute in conversations, but careful enough that you clearly distinguish between thinking aloud and deciding. For example, a simple leading “this is just an early thought, but what do you think about…” or “I want to talk this through before committing to anything, but what if we tried…” will often suffice.
- Set conversational parameters up front – Decide first how each conversation will be structured. Is it a conversation where you’re going to provide a series of instructions that you want people to note and act on (where you can leverage the CEO butterfly effect)? Or is it a brainstorming discussion where you need to be free to share your point of view, without being concerned that people will take it as gospel (where you need to manage the CEO butterfly effect)? Set the expectation at the beginning of the conversation and structure it accordingly.
- Conclude with actions and key points – Make it a practice to end every discussion by summarising the key points and actions. This keeps everyone in sync. Doing it habitually also trains people to expect the wrap-up, relieving them of the impulse to overreact to your every passing thought during the conversation.
- Develop a culture of candour – Alongside the points above, develop a workplace where robust, but respectful, challenging of one another – including the boss – is encouraged. You can role model this by pushing people to challenge you and then demonstrating what a positive, constructive response to that challenge looks like. Workplace candour drives better decision-making, but it also reduces the need for rumours and negative talk. Both serve to create a positive work environment for your team members.
Managing the CEO butterfly effect is about balancing influence with openness. By fostering clarity, setting expectations, and encouraging candid discussions, leaders can ensure their ideas drive progress without unintended consequences.
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