The Great CEO Within

Mochary coaches technology chief executives and wrote a practical operating manual for founders scaling from a handful of people to a few hundred. It is short, organised as a reference rather than as a narrative, and available free online.

The content is procedural. He gives specific formats for board meetings, weekly executive meetings, one-on-ones, and what he calls the top goal practice, in which a person identifies one goal and spends the first hour of each day on it before anything else. He covers hiring processes including scorecards and reference checks, firing procedures with specific language, compensation frameworks, and the mechanics of running a company on objectives and key results.

Distinctive elements include his conflict resolution process, in which two people in dispute are brought together with a facilitator who requires each to state the other's position until the other agrees it is accurate; the practice of writing down all issues and having the team vote on which to discuss rather than working through an agenda; the areas of responsibility document assigning every function to a named person; and his argument that a chief executive should personally handle recruiting, fundraising and setting the vision, and delegate everything else.

The book has no evidence base and is entirely Mochary's coaching practice. It is specific to venture-funded technology companies and assumes that funding model. Some sections are lists without explanation. Its value is that it gives templates a founder can implement the same week, which most management books do not. The conflict resolution process and the areas of responsibility document are the parts most often adopted.