Don't talk, work

We fired our sales director in part to make our marketing guy happy. Now that he is happy we expect more productive work from him. So our CEO gave him the simple task of converting his random collection of tips and help documents to FAQs. FAQs being the accepted standard for conveying this information to our customers. Of course he balked. He asked what was wrong with his original work and why this needs to be done. The guy is way to sensitive. Everything has to be discussed and analyzed and explained ad nauseam. You now have a boss so please, pretty please just do what you're told for god's sake.

You don't want your CEO having to explain decisions to subordinates. If your people can't take direction and do what they're told, they are undermining the system of management that is crucial to a startup.

There is a time for discussion and there's also a time for putting your head down and getting the job done. It's the CEO's job to make the decisions, delegate the work and facilitate the execution of the plan. It's everyone else's job to do the work. And right about now we need more work and less bloody discussion.