Management philosophy of remote‑control CEOs and self‑correcting business architecture

employees—how to handle the human element. Herb tells you to give them a hug, Revson tells you to kick them in the balls, and I tell you to solve the problem by eliminating it altogether: Remove the human element. Once you have a product that sells, it’s time to design a self-correcting business architecture that runs itself. The Remote-Control CEO The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection. —HENRY WARD BEECHER, U.S. abolitionist and clergyman, “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit” RURAL PENNSYLVANIA L, a 200-year-old stone farmhouse, a quiet “experiment in 21st-century leadership” is proceeding exactly as planned.*4Stephen McDonnell is upstairs in his flip-flops looking at a spreadsheet on his computer. His company has increased its annual revenue 30% per year since it all began, and he is able to spend more time with his three daughters than he ever thought possible. The experiment? As CEO of Applegate Farms, he insists on spending just one day per week at the company headquarters in Bridgewater, New Jersey. He’s not the only CEO who spends time at home, of course—there are hundreds who have heart attacks or nervous breakdowns and need time to recover— but there is a huge difference. McDonnell has been doing it for more than 17 years. Rarer still, he started doing it just six months after founding the company. This intentional absence has enabled him to create a process-driven instead of founder-driven business. Limiting contact with managers forces the entrepreneur to develop operational rules that enable others to deal with problems themselves instead of calling for help. This isn’t just for small operations. Applegate Farms sells more than 120 organic and natural meat products to high-end retailers and generates more than $35 million in revenue per year. It is all possible because McDonnell started with the end in mind. Behind the Scenes: The Muse Architecture Orders are nobody can see the Great Oz! Not nobody, not nohow! — GUARDIAN OF THE EMERALD CITY GATES, The Wizard of Oz S tarting with the end in mind—an organizational map of what the eventual business will look like—is not new. Infamous deal-maker Wayne Huizenga copied the org chart of McDonald’s to turn Blockbuster into a billion-dollar behemoth, and dozens of titans have done much the same. In our case, it’s the “end in mind” that is different. Our goal isn’t to create a business that is as large as possible, but rather a HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013923