It's ironic. We all welcome better times. Yet the CEO's job becomes trickier than in tough times.

Tough times require strong management skills. You have to do more with less. The focus is on the cost line. New revenue is harder to win and the challenge is often holding on to what you have. Decisions are tough at a human level and they have a short term horizon i.e. they impact next quarter.

Time is the great enemy in growth companies; too much to do, lots of meetings, hard to make the right impact. What you were doing last year may not be what you should do this year. 

You know the time-crunch symptoms. Everything is a rush. Last minute impatience creates stress. Procrastination and indecisiveness make 'to do' lists longer. You feel handcuffed to email technology. 

Many CEO's have to operate in a split personality mode, like Dr Jekyll and My Hyde when it comes to business growth. Most of the time they are in an operational or ‘in the business’ mindset and only occasionally do they actually take time out to focus ‘on the business’.

Many CEOs did a stellar job in leading their companies through the last recession. They made tough decisions. They dieted and trimmed the fat out of the cost line. As a result, they are fitter, healthier and have cash reserves.

However their companies now face a different set of challenges. New markets are emerging and product choices need to be made. Their value proposition needs to be reviewed and the sales and marketing machine needs an overhaul.

In a previous post (Getting to Product/Market Fit - how can startups get there faster) and in the book The Business Battlecard (www.selectstrategies.com) I wrote, about the science of product/market fit and  different approaches to get their faster. The scientific and tools based approach to product/market fit is promoted so widely now by people like Steve Blank, Eric Ries, Sean Ellis, Tristan Kromer, Morgan Brown and others that sometimes we forget the human element. I got a sharp reminder recently.

You love to win deals. Right! They pay the wages. You beat that competitor you dislike. But how profitable are these deals? Does your CFO know?

Is your pricing sometimes 'finger in the air'? How do you handle discounts? Do you reduce scope when discounts are given? Is your pricing like a leaky bucket?

Startups can be dark places. Founders can be both confused and manic in equal measure. The heroes journey is tempered with lack of cash and lots of uncertainty. Yet the joy and freedom of choosing to follow your dream is so rewarding. Incubators, universities and investors ask whether there is a better way to get to product/market fit? They ask how startups can learn to build their companies more efficiently?

Joe is CEO of a mid-sized software company that sells enterprise software to financial institutions. The sales cycles are typically 18 months and there are a lot of decision makers to convince. He is one of those CEOs that staff love most of the time. He runs a good business. There is a pace to it. The financials are always produced on the seventh day of the month. Products are always shipped four weeks after the product software goes to the quality assurance department. Joe is a doer and he expects others to do what they say they will do.

You know the management meeting. Some helpful 'process-o-crat' suggests - 'we should introduce a performance appraisal system'. Even as I write the words, I start to get a pain in my gut. They don't work. They create frustration. No good comes from the paperwork they create. The processes they create block honest day-to-day feedback conversations. They focus on weaknesses too much.

Declan Kidney knows that professional sports team management is brutish. Wins are quickly forgotten and sentiment turns quickly toxic when results don't meet expectations. Most leaders performance evaluation is conducted in private. Not so for a professional coach, even a Monday morning pundit (like myself) feels we have a right to review the coaches performance.