Committed by Committee

Our company has been running by committee for the last few years. Our previous CEO was dead wood and spent most of his days working for another company where he was a board member. His presence was demoralizing to the entire company and after a bitter, ego-filled struggle he was booted.

Once the CEO was gone, there was no effort to replace him. We had one person who wanted to be CEO and another who should have been CEO. And to keep the payroll manageable we didn't want to hire an outside person at that time. Therefore, we arrived at CEO by committee. The committee included myself (engineering), our finance guy and our marketing guy. Absurd.

CEO by committee is great if you have no decisions to make and nothing to execute, in other words if you don't have a company, employees or customers. We lasted so long in this mode because of one or two big projects that carried us.

Now, however, it is clear this is not working. The company needs someone with ultimate authority and responsibility. And the groups need accountability.

The wheels are slowly turning...