Inside the kitchen cabinet: the smart CXO’s secret weapon
Entrepreneur, professor and author Scott Galloway has a phrase for it: the ‘kitchen cabinet’.
But exactly what is it and why do CXOs need one? Let’s open up this proverbial cupboard and see what’s inside…
What it is and what it’s not
The kitchen cabinet, as Galloway puts it, is a ‘a personal advisory board of three to four trusted individuals who act as a sounding board for your major life and career decisions.’ It’s not a formal advisory board or executive coach (although both are very useful). It’s not the expensive consultancy parachuted in with a six-month timeline and a slide deck. At Paceworks, we think of the kitchen cabinet as the group of people you keep close, outside the reporting line, outside the politics, outside the business. People you trust to share your challenges, risk free and help you think through them. In other words: complete transparency.
Galloway's point is that the most effective leaders don't operate in isolation. They curate a small, trusted group of specialists around them. People who bring expertise they don't have, perspective they can't get internally and no agenda beyond giving them a straight answer.
In practice, industry or subject matter expertise alone isn't always enough. Someone who knows what the board is watching for, where the pressure is coming from and what the real cost of a slow decision looks like at that level can be a huge benefit.
Why do CXOs need a kitchen cabinet
The need for it shows up in patterns that repeat themselves time and again across organisations. Let’s consider a few scenarios:
The internally promoted CEO who knows the business better than anyone, but spends the first six months managing their old division by proxy, because that's where their confidence lives. Or they get mired in internal politics and people issues, while key business areas drift. By the time the board notices, the window to make a key decision has closed.
The external hire who knows exactly what to do. Impressive, decisive and told the board exactly what they wanted to hear in the first 90 days. Except two of their three strategic assumptions were wrong for this market, this brand or this customer. Nobody on the inside said anything. Nobody wanted to be the one who questioned the new CEO. But who does that CEO turn to for validation of hypotheses or to disprove and challenge them?
The operations or finance leader who understands the P&L intimately, but has never had to think seriously about marketing and its impact on growth vs as a cost centre. They cut brand spend in year one to hit a number. But pipeline falls away and they're left wondering why growth has stalled.
None of these are stories about people who lacked ability. They're stories about people who lacked perspective at the moment it mattered most, and had no one close enough, and independent enough, to offer it. We’ve heard recently that some leaders are starting to create a type of ‘AI operating partner’, so they can ask the silly questions that come to them in the middle of the night or brainstorm about whatever is keeping them up. AI can certainly be part of the answer to the age-old ‘it’s lonely at the top’ truism, but it can only get you so far. Then it’s trusted, experienced, nuanced human judgement that matters. Having the right kitchen cabinet can help alleviate this feeling of loneliness, especially when it counts the most.
How to select your kitchen cabinet?
A considered, well-crafted kitchen cabinet can make the difference between success and failure. So how do you build one? Galloway has shared views on this as well. He advises to:
Select for virtue : go for smart, kind people every time
Avoid formalities: a short, sharp intervention vs a long-term commitment
Prioritise transparency: make sure you have or can quickly forge trust
Keep it small: just a few trusted confidants who have your back
We agree. We’d also add a few more:
Seek a thoughtful challenger: work with people who will challenge you, ask the hard questions and make you think, but ultimately leave the decision to you, you’re the CXO, after all
Prioritise domain expertise: general advice is good, but a kitchen cabinet with deep experience in the area you need help with can be a huge unlock
Engage with people you actually like: sounds obvious, but, hey, life is short
When is a kitchen cabinet most useful?
One key inflection point we’ve seen is a job or career change. You’ve been promoted into the C-Suite, for example. Navigating situations like this, where you become peerless, as the CEO, or amongst a very small peer group as a CXO, is exactly the moment when a kitchen cabinet comes into its own.
Most CEO departures in the first two years aren't caused by a single catastrophic decision. They're caused by a series of small ones, made without the right input, in the window when everything was still moveable.
A kitchen cabinet doesn't prevent hard decisions. It makes sure the hard decisions are made with the full picture. Do you recognise yourself or someone you know in any of the examples we shared and who will you put on your kitchen cabinet?