> pay up to get someone experienced in turnaround situations.
To your point, in the business world, if you've already gone through the turnaround experience, you're probably already very well compensated.
The one big thing that you can dangle in front of good candidates is a more powerful position or more responsibility. Hire a COO into a CEO position, or give a proven head coach power over personnel decisions. Other than that, there really isn't much of a carrot you can dangle. A move from a CEO of a successful company to a CEO of a failing company is a strictly negative move. EDIT: all other things being equal, of course. You could get a CEO of a small successful company to run a large failing company, but that'd be similar to getting a successful high school coach to run a college team.
Good point. Lou Gerstner wasn't going to jump from IBM right when he was starting to reap the rewards of his work.
The only case I can think of where execs jump around fairly quickly in "turnaround" situations are those who specialize in getting a company ready for a sale.
> To your point, in the business world, if you've already gone through the turnaround experience, you're probably already very well compensated.
And you have a name and a position and a network and influence at your company.
Money is worth peanuts compared to that!
What's the risk of taking an hypothetical 50M from Uber, it's gonna be trying to fuck you over with ISOs and sexually harass you, whereas you can take 5M a year at your current company safely and with great success for the next decade.
Keeping a successful ship successful is hard work. There is nothing a distressed ship has to offer you.
The challenge? Anecdata but my mom explained it thusly: some are good at starting companies, some at keeping things humming along and others at fixing companies...
To your point, in the business world, if you've already gone through the turnaround experience, you're probably already very well compensated.
The one big thing that you can dangle in front of good candidates is a more powerful position or more responsibility. Hire a COO into a CEO position, or give a proven head coach power over personnel decisions. Other than that, there really isn't much of a carrot you can dangle. A move from a CEO of a successful company to a CEO of a failing company is a strictly negative move. EDIT: all other things being equal, of course. You could get a CEO of a small successful company to run a large failing company, but that'd be similar to getting a successful high school coach to run a college team.