A Collection Of Fractional Executives Is Not An Executive Team

Sounds obvious.

In practice, I don't think it always is.

• A company needs more financial leadership, so it brings in a fractional CFO.
• Revenue is slipping. Add a fractional CRO.
• Operations gets messy. Bring in a COO.
• Technology needs direction. Add a CTO.

Each decision can make perfect sense.

And every one of those executives can be very good.

Then you look up and realize the company has more executive talent than it did six months ago... but the CEO is still connecting everything.

That's the part that interests me.

Fractional solves a real problem. It gives a company access to executive capability before it is ready, or willing, to make every permanent hire.

That's valuable.

But fractional, by itself, doesn't create a leadership team.

The CFO is looking at the business one way. The CRO sees something different. Operations is worried about execution. Technology has another set of constraints entirely.

None of them have to be wrong.

They just have to be solving different problems.

And if nobody is responsible for turning those perspectives into one set of priorities, one operating rhythm, and a few clear decisions, guess who ends up doing it?

The CEO. Again.

That's why I keep coming back to this distinction:

• Fractional is a staffing model.
• Coordination is an operating model.

You can add executive capacity and still fail to create executive leverage.

If the CEO still has to reconcile priorities, resolve the cross-functional issues, and make sure Finance, Revenue, Operations, and Technology actually move together, you added senior people. You didn't necessarily make the company easier to run.

That's a big part of the thinking behind ExecPods:

• Start with the outcome.
• Ask which executive capabilities that outcome actually requires.
• Maybe that's one fractional executive.
• Maybe it's a permanent hire.
• Maybe it's three functions that need to move together for a while.

But the answer shouldn't begin with how many executives you can assemble.

It should begin with what has to change in the business. Then build the executive coverage around that.

I'd be interested in hearing from people who have actually worked with fractional executives: What made the relationship really work? Or, just as useful: What made it fall apart?