You don't need an integrator.

Two incomplete CEOs.

The model goes like this. You have a lot of ideas, so you're the visionary. Then you hire an integrator, somebody who makes those ideas happen and filters out your bad ones. And that integrator sits between you and the leadership of the company.

I find that to be a big problem. Both of them are incomplete. One person gets the ego boost of being called the visionary, while sales leadership gets pushed to the side.

In practice it's often been twisted. The integrators are really operations people. And the visionary is the owner who has actually just been a bad CEO, and thinks he's going to hire somebody else to cure his ills. That's not the truth.

The concentration risk.

We're told only about 5% of the world are integrators, but that every single company needs one. That doesn't make any sense to me.

And when you do hire one, you've put a lot of weight on one seat. You hire somebody as an integrator and they can't actually run the business. They don't know how to drive sales. So the visionary just skips over them to the other leaders, and it ends up being a really big problem.

A really good integrator is just a high-quality CEO.

Vision and execution. Both.

Your job as a CEO, an entrepreneur or the leader of a business is to have both vision and execution. You don't get to have one or the other.

Velocity is the speed of something in a particular direction. Direction first. Speed second. Without both, you don't have velocity, only activity. The CEO's job is to hold both, synchronized through decisions.

If you want to be a visionary only, then you're a board member. You're not involved in the business anymore, and you don't get to keep the CEO title.

A CEO is a steward. You're the Chief Stewardship Officer, which means stewarding culture, time, opportunities, and systems. There's really only one role that needs to sit above your leadership team, and that's the CEO. The integrating happens at the levels of leadership below that.

What I run instead.

One person at the top of the company. Under them, domain leaders of growth, finance and operations, and they all report to the CEO. The way you keep those people moving is a system of execution, not a second boss. I call it Decision Velocity.

• The Big Three.One big goal for the year in each domain: growth, finance, operations. Not fifteen goals. Not a wish list. One per domain.
• Calendar-month cycles.Quarterly planning is not fast enough. Everyone knows how the calendar works. Twelve at-bats a year instead of four.
• Decision pitch meeting.This is the gatekeeper that keeps out bad ideas and shiny objects. Pitch in three minutes. Domain owners get the final call. No CEO overrides.
• Weekly updates.On course or deviating, then three questions: What has been done? What challenges are you facing? What is being done next?
• Executed or failed.At the end of the month, every priority gets one or the other. In this system, no one gets to hide.

The beauty is that it protects leaders from micromanaging and getting stuck in the weeds. As a CEO, I can quickly look and see, "The finance team looks like they're struggling on execution. Let me drill in a little bit." I don't have to chase them down, and I don't have to babysit anybody. They can be adults, and I want them to be adults. Once the system is in place, you let the engine run.

Test your top seat.

• Write your Big Three.One for growth, one for finance, one for operations. For this year only.
• Put a name on each domain.If nobody at the top owns sales, fix that first.
• Check who your leaders really report to.If they go around the integrator, the chart isn't real.
• Run one month.One priority per domain. At month-end, take account: executed or failed? There's no room for gray here.

Where Unbreakable OS fits.

I had Unbreakable OS built for myself first, to manage the Big Three, monthly cycles, pitch meetings, weekly updates, and execution in one place. It was designed around the way I wanted to run my business. It's $195 a month for up to 10 people, with 45 days free.

You don't need the software to apply these principles. But if you want to run on this framework the way I do, Unbreakable OS is there for you.

Start 45 days free ↗

If you want help being the CEO who owns both vision and execution, I coach a small number of Christian business owners and CEOs: work with Adam. Decision Velocity is Law 5 in my book, Biblical Business.

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