Becoming a high-potential CEO candidate.
Transitioning into the CEO role.
Navigating the middle years.
LOL! The co-authors of
A CEO for All Seasons report that “The day you become CEO, all the attention becomes laser-focused on you, often in ways that distort reality.” They quote the CEO of Allianz SE, Oliver Bäte,
“People change their face when you become CEO. Everybody gives you partial information. All of a sudden, you have a lot more friends. You have much funnier jokes. Your ties are much more beautiful than they were the day before.”Nasdaq’s CEO, Adena Friedman, agrees: “Once you become CEO, the relationship with the team changes, and what used to be a suggestion or idea is suddenly taken as a ‘command,’ which was certainly not the intention.”
THE PROBLEM. The authors warn that “All this attention and power can quickly create a celebrity CEO phenomenon where the transition becomes all about you.” They quote the CEO of a hospital system, who observes, “I see a lot of CEOs who are very much about themselves. They have a lot of ego, and some arrogance . . .
and they view the job as a destination, not a journey.”THE SOLUTION. Dr. Robert Gross continues, “I think when you’re a CEO,
you’re a concierge, and you’re responsible for the care and feeding of your institution.
“Concierge” is just one of dozens of fresh insights you’ll pick up from this book—plus, perhaps, a new lexicon for CEOs, board members, and senior team members. Example:
“leadership factories.” The authors predict that in the future, the “best of the best” leaders will turn their organizations into “leadership factories” where highly skilled people will focus on robust succession planning and excellent problem-solving.
“Leading through leaders” is just one of seven hallmarks of leaders who will “excel in the CEO role into the future.”
(Ask your board what the other six hallmarks might be—or read this book!)More from this leadership lexicon: •
Laddering: the clinical psychology interview technique that the authors used when interviewing 83 "best of the best" CEOs for this book.
•
The Lake Wobegon Effect: the “human tendency to overestimate our own abilities, achievements, and performance.”
•
The Primacy Effect: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
•
Entertainment: Netflix’s CEO warns about understanding the press: “They want to be truth tellers, but they’re forced to be entertainers.”
•
Play Big Ball: “…spend time on things that no one else can in ways that magnify your effectiveness without getting mired in things that don’t make a difference.”
•
A Players: When assessing talent,
“Put A players in critical roles, move C players out, and help B players succeed.” (Read more in
Leaders at All Levels.
Read my review.)
Using a rigorous research approach, the McKinsey team began studying the CEOs who led the world’s 1,000 largest companies in the last 15 years. Adding more criteria, including “best CEO lists,” they landed on just 200 leaders—and interviewed 83. And get this: “these CEOs were able to sense, learn, and act so quickly that they never endured a losing season.” And this:
“…those in business who achieve the most tend to be those who are the best at getting better.”The insights run just 112 pages, plus a 25-page appendix with “reflection exercises” for CEOs, the senior team, and the board. The second appendix includes one-page profiles of 46 “exceptional CEOS we interviewed along the way.”
(And I checked—your bio is not there!)OPERATIONAL CADENCE. “The best CEOs take the time early in their tenure to think through the tempo and template for accountability and execution. This means playing a hands-on role in setting up weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual meetings with individuals, committees, the team as a whole…” and others.
While noting that every organization’s “operating rhythm” is different,
“a common template is to get the top team together weekly for a relatively informal sixty-minute meeting to touch base, monthly for a more formal half day, and once a year at an off-site.” (Read more in
Death by Meeting.
Read my review.)
WHAT ME—COMPLACENT? Then there’s this wake-up call!
“We’ve never met a CEO who told us, ‘Yep, I’m becoming complacent.’” During the “middle stretch” of a CEO’s tenure, many CEOs believe that complacency will be the toughest challenge they face. “Said another way, becoming a successful CEO is hard, but staying successful is even harder.”
And get this:
“More than half of the companies on the Fortune 500 list in the year 2000 went bankrupt, were acquired, or ceased to exist in the following 15 years.” Why? “The reasons why complacency sets in can be more emotional than intellectual. In the middle years of your CEO journey, you’re the author of the organization’s status quo. It’s your plan. This makes it far more difficult for you to judge the business dispassionately and to disrupt what’s working well enough. Also, with more success comes increased confidence in your judgment.”
Morgan Stanley’s former CEO James Gorman: “The problem with being a CEO a long time is everybody tells you that you have all the answers. It’s comforting to your ego but very dangerous.”
PepsiCo’s Ramon Laguarta reminds CEOs:
“The longer you’re in this role, the greater the risk you think you know everything. You think you’re a hero. You think you know it all. And you think you are the most intelligent person in the room. And you’re not.” (Speaking of heroes and succession, delegate the reading of
The Hero’s Farewell to a team member.
Read my review.)
No matter what season you’re in—as a CEO or a new leader or manager (or board member)—I guarantee your investment in just the first 112 pages will inspire your leadership and others.
• Learn why the CEO of a large corporation routinely enjoys coffee and a croissant in the company’s cafeteria every morning at 7:30 a.m.
• Discover why Intuit’s Brad Smith hosted two meetings per week with eight to 10 people in each group (several levels down) and the three questions he always asked, including:
“What’s something you’re afraid no one is telling me that you believe I need to know?” • Read how Intel’s Andy Grove and Gordon Moore made a huge decision by walking out of the office—and then back in—with a gutsy new mindset!
• Learn how Michell Dell of Dell Technologies, 30 years at the helm, found a novel way “to prompt his leadership team to think like outsiders.”
What season are you in? In the “Staying Ahead,” chapter, the authors note that “Between three and five years into their tenure, the best CEOs typically take what they’ve learned and, thinking like an outsider, create the next performance
S-curve for their company. (Read more on S-curves in
Charles Handy’s book here.
Read my review.)
HEART PADDLES! JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon notes, “Companies are always slowing down, always getting more bureaucratic. Even great people who don’t intend to slow things down tend to do this. You have to constantly fight to improve.” One helpful analogy from another leader:
“No one likes change, so you need to create a rhythm of change. Think of it as applying ‘heart paddles’ to the organization.”OVAL OFFICE NIGHTMARE! I’d buy this book just to soak up the wisdom on CEO succession planning (the fourth season). The authors’ research documents:
“A new CEO’s early dismissal is 2.4 times more likely when the outgoing CEO remains the board chair.” Ben Cohen at
The Wall Street Journal noted, “Imagine if the former president moved out of the Oval Office but still lived in the White House.”
TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for
A CEO for All Seasons: Mastering the Cycles of Leadership, by Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, Vikram Malhotra, and Kurt Strovink (Senior Partners at McKinsey & Company). Listen on
Libro (3 hours, 55 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
BONUS! Three of the four McKinsey co-authors of
A CEO for All Seasons also collaborated on the excellent book (no pun intended),
CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest.
Read my review here where I ask the question, "Will you read 1 book or 20 books?"
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