When you have the option to hire a CEO for your company, who would you choose?
- Some guy who might know a little bit about business, maybe even a little more than the average American because he has to deal with it a lot, but ultimately doesn't have any experience in the field, and doesn't have a lot of understanding about the complex situations the industry faces.
- A guy who has a proven track record. Has served as a top-level executive for many companies, has a well-rounded education on the fundamentals of business, and has had to deal with many of the issues that the average person wouldn't even realize they face.
When has being a "life-long" worker in your field been a bad thing? As long as the veteran in the field realizes they have to adapt their mentality for approaching problems, then they will almost always be better than the "outsider"
Alternatively, if your company was a tech company and a bunch of tech companies were failing because of a culture shift, would you hire a CEO with lots of experience in the old tech culture?
The right combination is someone who has enough experience to not be completely incompetent, but isn't too locked in to the ways that things have always been done. ---
