Summary

  • In April 2011. Ben Horowitz published a now-famous article called Peacetime CEO/Wartime CEO which examined Google’s leadership transition from Eric Schmidt to Larry Page.

  • While the media focused on the contrasting demeanors of Schmidt vs. Page, Ben argued they missed the point: they are fundamentally different types of CEOs—one built for peacetime (Schmidt); the other, wartime (Page). Ben then describes traits of peacetime vs. wartime CEOs.

  • Since 99.97% of US workers are not CEOs—there are ~42k CEOs in the US vs. ~135m workers—I thought it might be useful to apply & extend Ben’s framework for non-CEOs.

  • I also surveyed 24 leaders in my network for feedback on how they lead/operate differently in peacetime vs. wartime. Spoiler alert: in wartime, the degree of rigor, intensity, prioritization, and expectation increases dramatically.

What is peacetime vs. wartime?

Peacetime for a company, as Ben defines it, has three attributes:

  • Large advantage vs. the competition in its core market

  • Its market is growing

  • Primary focus is expanding the market and reinforcing the company’s strengths

Wartime, by contrast, feels much different:

  • Fending off an imminent existential threat like competition

  • Grappling with dramatic macro economic changes, market changes, or supply chain changes

  • Primary focus is fighting for survival

I’d argue that many companies—especially enterprise SaaS—are in wartime. Budgets are tight, quota attainment is light, and private valuations are down 40-50%+ from peak ZIRP. Some have called it the SaaS recession.

What do peacetime vs. wartime CEOs do differently?

As a refresher, below is a comparison of how peacetime vs. wartime CEOs operate differently, based on 13 domains I distilled from Ben’s original article.

How should I lead/operate differently in wartime?

For the 99.97% of us who are not CEOs, I’ve tried to apply & extend Ben’s framework. Whether you are a VP Sales, Director of CS, or a SDR Manager, my hope is you glean a few answers to the question: “How should I lead/operate differently now that my company is in wartime?”

I also surveyed 24 leaders in my network for feedback on how they lead/operate differently in peacetime vs. wartime. Spoiler alert: in wartime, the degree of rigor, intensity, prioritization, and expectation increases dramatically.

Wartime principles

Based on the survey feedback, and my 10+ years of leadership experience (mostly in Customer Success), four key principles emerged for wartime behavior:

  1. Rigorous intensity: when the stakes are high, pressure increases. 83% of the leaders surveyed said they spend more time with their direct reports and team. Small talk goes down, business clarity goes up. Take Frank Slootman’s Amp It Up! philosophy, and amp it up some more. “Let’s regroup next week” becomes “Let’s regroup tomorrow .” Default urgency.

  2. Prioritize or die: time becomes the most valuable asset. 87% of the leaders surveyed emphasized “ruthless prioritization of their team’s work.” Many cut all projects not directly tied to the company’s survival goals, e.g. hit quota, reduce churn, launch product. Some even got into the nitty gritty and had their teams keep logs of daily activity to ensure alignment.

    • 71% of leaders surveyed maintain a “Don’t Do” list, i.e. intentionally deprioritized.

  3. Default skepticism: “Inspect closely, don’t take the first or second answer at face value.” 75% of leaders surveyed mentioned a mindset shift toward investigating and verifying. This isn’t because they didn’t trust their team, but rather they felt it was incumbent on them to relentless seek the truth, rather on relying on second-hand accounts of it. This also helps them uncover unknown risks which could make or break the month/quarter/year/company.

  4. Brace for discomfort: ”The culture change feels like whiplash. Some may even feel betrayed by their leaders. Especially in startup world where people have been used to cushy perks, lots of talk about culture and career development.” 71% of leaders surveyed set an expectation of hard times ahead. Wartime brings discomfort, so it seems fair to communicate that. Complaining will not increase the company’s chance of survival.

Wartime tactics

Principles are useful for broad alignment, but what about specific wartime tactics? What do the great GTM leaders do in wartime to increase their chance of survival? A few patterns emerged.

  • Communication: the vast majority of leaders surveyed said wartime requires over-communication. This took the form of: slacking the team’s priorities daily, emailing daily and weekly leaderboards re: IC performance/execution, and increasing the overall level of clarity/specificity/detail/precision in all their internal comms.

  • Accountability: effective delegation is wartime muscle. All commitments—big or small—are clearly documented with a deadline determined by the task owner. Broken commitments are grounds for demerits/termination. As one leader put it, “I try and be extremely clear with my expectations by saying ‘I expect you to do x task to y quality y by z date. Can I hold you accountable to this?’ All commitments must be crystal clear, or we won’t win.”

  • Battle cards: to combat fierce competition, many GTM leaders invested in building/refining how they market/sell/retain against (often) large incumbents. Wartime is open-season on the weak, so many built tactical playbooks for “who does what/when” to increase the likelihood of success against a formidable competitor—often with the help of product marketing.

  • Callouts: if a rep went out of bounds (deviating from plan, or spending cycles on something other than the top priorities), many leaders mentioned they wouldn’t hesitate to call them out publicly as a learning exercise for the broader team to drive alignment.

  • Longer hours: when survival is on the line, 50-70+ hour work weeks aren’t uncommon. These leaders expect a lot of themselves, and a lot of their team. They’re willing to cancel dinner plans and crush a 12+ hour day to make forward progress.

  • Meetings: many leaders deleted or didn’t attend meetings not directly tied to their immediate goals. This gave them time back to allocate to the stated priorities. Additionally, they often blocked 2-3 hours of deep work to ensure focus on wartime priorities.

  • Celebrate: since wartime can be discouraging, more than 50% of the leaders surveyed said they allocate time to intentionally recognize & celebrate key victories, e.g. a challenging opportunity gets flipped, a newer AE closes a complex deal, a CSM saves a key churn risk, a PM launches a killer new feature. Just because the warpath is grim, doesn’t mean one can’t cheer forward progress with a few victory shots.