By Tim Mead
Managing Director,Gustin Partners

Advisors such as Gustin Partners sometimes find themselves in the role of messenger, conveying to managers beliefs, points of view or assertions their investors, bosses, colleagues or subordinates don’t want to impart directly—or vice versa.

In the moment, rarely does an advisor have the luxury to step back to ask why it’s being asked to play this role when it ostensibly has been hired to render a more concrete service—raise capital, search for talent, develop strategy, position in a market, etc. It just relays the messages in the course of delivering on the assignment, hoping to stay in everyone’s good graces long enough to stay engaged.

Away from it all and assuming the messenger isn’t shot, it becomes obvious to the advisor as to why such emissary work was necessary. Lack of trust, fear of reprisal/repercussions, shortage of time, etc. are the usual suspects. More elusive, however, is what leads to such circumstances?

In the case of private equity, it is more than often the fault of the investor—not the CEO whose platform merits capital—as to who should be blamed for poor or misunderstood board/CEO communications. The PE or VC firm at fault often ignores an important work stream to address when evaluating an investment opportunity: Educating the CEO and his/her team about anything and everything—especially information transparency—they need to know to advance the company beyond its current stage. The education needs to be both formal—e.g., a workshop for portfolio CEOs on a dimension of leading a PE- backed company—and informal such as conversations over a breakfast or dinner outside of the cycle of board meetings. The result of such ignorance often is the ouster of the CEO or his/her relegation to another title, e.g., the CEO becomes CTO or Vice Chairman two-step dance.

In the case of an established company, blame or cause is a little harder to pinpoint as to why a messenger must be summoned—whether an external agent such as Gustin Partners or an internal one such as HR:

• Often it is a blend of personalities and corporate cultures that foster a need for an intermediary. I once worked at a $600 million company whose 55-year-old leaders chose an avuncular, 70- year-old consultant to deliver management, performance and career advice to 35-year-old middle managers, most of whom hadn’t the faintest idea of what the hell the consultant was trying to say. “Why doesn’t so-and-so tell me this himself?” I once posed of the consultant after he delivered a sobering assessment of my ability to deliver on financial commitments. “He’s smart enough to know you need help in this area,” the consultant replied. “But he’s not smart enough to give you the advice himself because it’s a shortcoming of his own.”
• Other times it is a question of bandwidth: The person or group sending a message to a subordinate doesn’t have the time (or choose to make the time) to deliver it in all the context required to do so. 
• And sometimes the person receiving the message, particularly if it’s from peers or subordinates, doesn’t get the message from them because it isn’t clear or forthright.

Any advisor worth its, his or her salt should be willing to play messenger—at last from time to time. If the firm or individual adds significant value in this respect, remember as much the next time you go to market for advice—maybe you need value added.

Tim Mead is a managing director of Gustin Partners. He is responsible for major client relationships and engagements across the spectrum of the firm's services, with a concentration on client companies in the professional services, media, communications services and advanced information technologies sectors.