High pay does not equal a senior executive role: many founders have merely hired an "overpaid employee".

Recently, a founder talked to me about his executive team, saying he was completely burnt out.

In the past few years, he has hired several people with high salaries. Each of them came on board with an impressive resume and a lofty title, and spoke with great eloquence about strategy, organization and methodology. But once they actually started working, he was still the one figuring out the business direction, spotting the problems, and pushing progress at key milestones. When tasks failed to deliver results, he ended up stepping in to fix the mess.

He said: "All these tasks are supposed to be done well by these executives, but why am I still doing their jobs for them in the end?"

I said, the answer might be harsh: He is not your executive, he is only paid a high salary. Or, he only has a fancy title.

This is the biggest misconception many founders have when recruiting people: they naturally assume that if someone earns such a high salary, they must be a qualified executive; if someone used to be P8 or P9 at a large established company, they should be able to solve problems independently at a startup. But a high salary only represents that he was priced at that level in the original market over the past decade, and does not mean he can create value matching that price in your company today.

01 Executives at startups are not defined by high positions, but by the ability to deliver end-to-end results

What is the definition of an executive at a startup?

An executive is someone who, under uncertainty and with limited resources, can help the founder deliver the outcome of a project, and is self-driven, proactive, and capable of seeking external support during the process, instead of telling the founder at the last minute that he cannot make it. I believe this is what a real executive is.

If he cannot deliver such results, he is nothing more than a highly paid employee at the startup. His high salary only comes from his past pricing over the past decade, which does not mean he can create value matching that price for you today.

Therefore, executives at startups and executives at mature platforms are often not the same type of people at all.

Mature platforms can provide you with brand resources, budgets, teams, standardized processes and clear defined goals. You only need to do your best for the part you are responsible for within a fully established system.

But growing-stage startups are completely different. What the founder gives you may only be a vague goal, a small team of several people and a limited budget. No one has verified the execution path, problems are bound to occur in the middle of the process, and resources will never be fully in place.

At this point, the value of an executive is not to tell the boss that "conditions are not met". Instead, he should be able to judge what to do first under existing conditions, where to find the missing resources, which steps require trial and error, and when it is necessary to ask the boss for decision-making, so as to take full charge of the whole task from the problem side to the final result side.

An executive is not someone who earns a higher salary than ordinary employees, but someone who is responsible for a complete set of results in an uncertain environment.

02 The P8 or P9 title at large established companies is not a capability manual for startup executives

Essentially, when recruiting executives for companies with annual revenue ranging from 100 million to 3 billion, you cannot simply benchmark them against titles like P7, P8, P9, P10 from large companies, or against annual salaries of 50,000, 80,000, 100,000 or 200,000.

The core point is what problems you want this person to solve, what problems need to be solved completely by this person's end-to-end capabilities, whether this person has the ability to actively explore, trial and error, and make breakthroughs, and whether he truly knows when to ask for support, and what rhythm to use to manage and operate the business with the boss. If he pesters the boss for every trivial matter, the boss will get annoyed, right? If he never reports major issues and fails to deliver the final result, the boss will also be driven to despair. So figuring out when to turn to the boss for support is the hardest part. This is what I often call the sense of rhythm for executives in the startup process.

If a person gets a very high job level at a large company, it first proves that he has adapted to that system and created value within that system.

But you still need to keep asking: How much brand support, budget and team resources did he have at that time? Who defined the goals and execution paths? Which key judgments were made by him, and which problems were solved by the platform for him? Can he deliver the same result again without the original resources?

What startups need to look at is not how high a position he held in the past, but how much of the capabilities from his past success truly belong to him. The success of the platform will not be packaged into your company along with his offer letter.

03 Why did the tasks end up back in the boss's hands even after you spent a lot of money hiring the executive?

I usually divide this situation into three categories.

The first category: What you want him to do is completely different from what he wants to do.

What you need is to win the first client, get a new channel up and running, and bring in profits.

What he wants to do is make plans, build processes and formulate SOPs. He keeps making plans, drawing up blueprints and drafting SOPs every day, which is not what you need. What you need is for him to make money for the company.

He thinks he is building the system, while you think he is always preparing but never getting down to actual combat.

This is not a matter of who is more professional, but from the very first day, you two have not aligned your definition of responsibilities.

The second category: The problem you want him to solve is not clearly defined even by yourself.

Founders often say: "I spend so much money hiring you precisely because I don't know how to do this."

This sentence makes sense, but it is only half correct.

Executives certainly should help founders jointly define problems, provide options and make judgments; but some decisions involving company direction, benefit distribution and resource trade-offs still need the founder to make the final call.

If the boss himself keeps swinging between several goals, and expects the executive to come up with a 100% satisfactory answer out of thin air, no matter how expensive the person is, he cannot make it.

The third category, which is also the hardest one: He knows what he should do, but he does not have the ability to deliver it.

He can explain all the theories clearly, and knows that this task is his responsibility. But when it comes to real business scenarios, he cannot break down the task, cannot coordinate resources, cannot adjust when deviations occur, and waits for the boss to spot problems, give reminders and fill the gaps at every step.

At this point, it is useless to listen to what he has done in the past anymore.

What you need to check is exactly what he has actually accomplished at your company.

04 One of the most important capabilities for executives is to know when to ask the boss for support

Many bosses have a misunderstanding about executives: Since I pay you a high salary, you should handle everything on your own and never come to me. But a real qualified executive does not avoid the boss forever.

At startups, resources and power are all concentrated in the hands of the founder. Some cross-departmental conflicts, major trade-offs and resource mobilization inherently require the boss's intervention. The real difficulty for executives is to master the right rhythm of asking for support.

If he pesters the boss for trivial matters every day, the boss will think: What did I hire you for?

If he never reports major issues and only tells the boss at the last minute that he cannot deliver, the boss will definitely break down.

A good executive should come to the boss with full information, judgments and solutions when the problem is still solvable.

He should not throw the problem back to the boss, but clearly state: What I have already done, where I am stuck now; what options I have judged, and what the cost of each option is; which matter needs your final decision, and which resource requires your help to unlock.

Seeking external support is not a sign of insufficient capability. It means that after he has exhausted all his personal capabilities and available resources, he still does not give up and chooses to ask for external support. Knowing when to ask for support and what to bring when asking for support is in itself one of the most valuable capabilities for a growing executive.

05 To judge whether a person is a qualified executive, stop looking at his salary, assign him a clear battle

Therefore, when a founder judges whether a person is a real executive, stop looking at his title, and stop looking at how much he earned in the past. Assign him a battle with relatively clear boundaries.

Make four things clear first: What is the business problem this battle needs to solve; what result counts as a win, and what is the timeline; which people, funds and resources he can mobilize; which matters he can decide on his own, and under what circumstances he must ask the boss for support.

Then observe how he executes this task.

Can he understand the problem proactively instead of waiting for tasks to be assigned? Can he move forward first with limited resources instead of waiting for all conditions to be ready? Can he adjust in time when deviations occur instead of making excuses for the failure at last? Can he bring the problems that need the boss's resolution to the table at the right time?

This is the most authentic way to judge an executive.

Of course, if the goals have never been clearly stated, authorization has never been granted, and everyone still bypasses him to report directly to the boss, you cannot conclude that this person is unqualified only by the final result.

But if all the required information has been clearly communicated, and all the resources that should be given have been provided, and he still keeps pushing the same task back to the boss over and over again, you have to admit: This person may not be an executive, but just an expensive employee who waits for arrangements all the time.

Hiring an executive certainly does not mean that the founder can ignore everything the day after the new employee comes on board; but it also cannot be the case that after a very long time, you are still doing the same work for the same person over and over again.

If you have this kind of trouble, do not discuss whether he is worth the annual salary first. Figure out first: Whether the battle is clearly defined, whether he has got the conditions he deserves, and whether he can truly take full charge of delivering the result end to end.

A high salary is the market's pricing for his past performance. The identity as an executive is what he earns again by delivering results at your company.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Zhang Meiji", the author is Zhang Meiji, and 36Kr publishes it with authorization.