The New CEO

CHAPTER 3Burst the CEO Bubble

“Nobody tells you the whole truth in the boardroom. There are two floors that are real: the factory floor and the trade floor. Everything in between is PowerPoint.”

—Marc Bitzer, CEO, Whirlpool

One of the most common analogies CEOs use when describing the role is that it feels like you exist in a bubble—that you're surrounded by an invisible film that isolates you from what's really going on and what people really think and feel.

Or, as the well-known saying, adapted for the business world, goes, “As CEO, you can count on two things—you will never be given a cold coffee and you will never hear the whole truth.”¹

People will treat you differently now that you're CEO. You can think you are the same person as before, act the same, think and feel the same, but you are not the same. You are the CEO.

As CEO, your jokes will be funnier, and your stories will be more interesting. But you will also be further from the truth and challenged less.

For these reasons, you need to burst the bubble as soon as you can. And stop it reforming, which it can do multiple times during your tenure.

Ultimately, only you can burst the bubble. First, you have to acknowledge that you are in one. Then you have to work constantly to break it, or at least create some holes in it so you have the information you need to be effective (beware that, for some organizational cultures, the natural state is to keep moving the CEO back into the bubble).

Bursting the bubble involves ...