Issue 003
Summer gives many companies a brief lull. Customers take holidays and decisions wait. Across the companies we work with this summer, we saw CEOs fill that space by revisiting plans made in spring, modeling new sales goals, and looking for more certainty before deciding what to do next. We wrote the 4 articles in this edition during that period.
Each one looks at a different way a CEO can get stuck in their own thinking and lose contact with what the company needs. Autumn is the harvest period, when the orders, customers, and invoices from the earlier work arrive at once, and it is rarely the right time to redesign a company.
Still Running on Scarcity
A company can be safe for years before every part of it feels safe. A business survives a lean stretch, revenue steadies, and people stop bracing for the next bad month. One corner, most often sales or marketing, keeps rationing as if the money were still tight. Judgment narrows, every deal feels like the one that decides the quarter, and prospects sense the need across the table. The article traces where scarcity lodges, why it outlives the crisis that caused it, and what slack restores: a full pipeline, a quarter that does not hinge on one deal. It draws on research with sugarcane farmers whose reasoning scores fell when money was tight and recovered after harvest.
Speed Is the Wrong Instinct
The faster the world moves, the less a CEO's speed is worth. AI already trades in millionths of a second and holds more facts than anyone will carry, so on speed and information the machine wins. The article names the 2 ways a leader loses contact with reality. The Reaction moves the instant something happens and learns the wrong lesson from every burn. The Story steers by a mental map drawn years ago while the business moves on. A CEO keeps one advantage, presence: watching the flow of events from the bank and stepping in only when the moment calls. Judgment is the last thing AI reaches, and the faster the world moves, the more it is worth.
When CEOs Push, the Company Scatters
It is September, Q4 is in view, and the familiar move is to set a bigger target and push the company to hit it. The article follows what the push does. Pressure travels down before a word is said, and capable people stop trusting their own read. Every hand goes up when the CEO asks who is behind the target, but agreeing is not aligning. When researchers asked managers at 124 companies to list their top priorities, only 28% could name 3 of the top 5. Bad news stops moving up, so the leader who pushed hardest knows the least and pushes harder. The article ends on the way out: a settled company pointed at a short list, and small wins, one finished piece of work at a time.
Behind the CEO's Mask
We told a CEO client he was choosing to stay stuck. He smiled, paid us a compliment, and nothing in his company changed. That is the CEO Mask at work: a performance of composure and command that absorbs every challenge and returns charm. The article lays out the 3 jobs the mask does (it borrows self-worth, manufactures control, and quiets the fear of being unimportant), why those jobs reset every night and exhaust even successful CEOs, and how a Leadership Team copies the performance until nobody in the company is honest. It ends with the alternative, taking the mask off with the reins still in hand, and the 4 ways CEOs leave the job when their identity lives inside the role.
From the Editors
By September, summer has begun to give way to autumn.
Summer gives many companies a brief lull. Customers take holidays. Decisions wait. Across the companies we work with, we saw many CEOs fill that space by revisiting plans made in spring, modeling new sales goals, and looking for more certainty before deciding what to do next.
We wrote the four articles in this edition during that period. Each looks at a different way a CEO can get stuck in their own thinking and lose contact with what the company needs.
As autumn arrives, the conditions around a company begin to change.
Autumn is the harvest period. The work, relationships, and decisions built through spring and summer begin to produce results. For a company, the harvest comes as orders to fulfill, customers to serve, and invoices to collect. The company gets busier because more of its earlier work is now arriving at once.
At the same time, a CEO can add a second set of demands: a sales goal that does not match current capacity, a new priority in the middle of delivery, or more time spent refining the plan for next year than looking at the customers and orders already here.
The company carries both demands: the work already arriving and the CEO's idea of what the year should still become.
The four articles in this edition examine the same pattern from different angles. An old crisis still shapes today's decisions. Every alert becomes urgent. A target turns into pressure, and the team pulls apart. The need to look in control delays the change the company needs.
Once a CEO gets caught in overthinking, they stop hearing what people see and say. People become less clear with each other, less honest about what is wrong, and less able to adjust together. During this busy autumn period, the company has less capacity for a new direction.
Together, the articles explore how a CEO can step out of overthinking.
Autumn is rarely the right time to redesign a company. The company needs to do the work already in motion. Notice what holds. Write down what strains. Keep yourself steady enough that your people can tell you what they see.
Take five minutes outside. Watch the leaves change. Return to the next meeting with your attention on the company in front of you.
The quieter period will come. For now, help the company bring in what it has already grown.
