I think the #1 thing when you become part of an exec team is that you should be optimizing for the _business_, and not your function. The working assumption is that you will keep your function executing and delivering, but what is really hard is helping to figure out what the right decisions are for the business. Should we invest more in product or sales? What if there’s a huge top of funnel problem — what can we do about it? Your job is to bring that technology perspective to the discussion.
I’ve been an exec, founder, CEO, and board member at various stages of successful (IPO) /unsuccessful companies (acqui-hire) companies. And the common thread at every stage is that the most successful companies had management teams that worked well together to optimize for the business.
So instead of spending your energy on reading / learning more about tech, I’d recommend you spend your energy learning more about business (I’d probably start by asking the CEO & the rest of the mgmt team for advice on what to learn.)
This is phenomenal advice. You might, for example, recommend outsourcing non-corrosive functionality rather than building it in house, if you feel that is better for the company.
You should do this even if it leads to layoffs for your department, because, again, your goal should be a thriving business, not a thriving engineering department and a lackluster business.
Source: I did recommend and lead this course of action once (the outsourcing, not the layoffs). Company is still using an outsourced solution.
This is one of the points made in Patrick Lencioni's "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team", which I've always found a valuable read.
A warning, though: it's a "business fable", where he gets his point across by telling a fictional story. Business writers tend to be pretty terrible fiction writers so it's corny, but it also makes it a pretty light read.
I’ve been an exec, founder, CEO, and board member at various stages of successful (IPO) /unsuccessful companies (acqui-hire) companies. And the common thread at every stage is that the most successful companies had management teams that worked well together to optimize for the business.
So instead of spending your energy on reading / learning more about tech, I’d recommend you spend your energy learning more about business (I’d probably start by asking the CEO & the rest of the mgmt team for advice on what to learn.)