WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT AT CEO LEVEL?

Many executives want to rise to the level of CEO some day but not all of them have considered what it will take to actually rise to that level and stay there. In my reading recently, I came across this article that I found very interesting and stimulating. I have decided to share it on my blog to give those of you who have ambitions of becoming CEO someday, something to ponder over. You can start preparing yourself for the huge task ahead after reading this article.

The article is as follows:

(CNN) -- Human beings can experience 34,000 different emotional states. But our research shows that in an average working week, most CEOs experience just one dozen emotions across work and home life. Those twelve emotions are mostly negative: Being overwhelmed, frustrated, angry, disappointed, and fearful.

When I quizzed 200 western CEOs on the personal pressure they felt in their jobs, a typical response was: "I can't talk to the chairman because in the end he's the one who is going to fire me. I can't talk to my finance director because ultimately I'm going to fire him, and I can't tell my wife because I never see her and when I do, that's the last thing she'll want to talk about."

About half confided they find the job intensely lonely and don't know who to turn to for advice. Indeed, Antonio Horta-Osorio's leave of absence from Lloyds Banking Group this month illustrates how the stress of the CEO role can leave individuals ill.

Why is it so difficult at CEO level?

The day to day pressures of the job are intense. Most CEOs are at the mercy of their diaries, their businesses, the press and their shareholders. With the western economies entering a long, hard winter, and the rising competitiveness of eastern businesses, CEOs in western countries face some of the harshest conditions of their careers.

The long term personal toll can also be huge. One typical FTSE100 CEO told me: "I have been married twice and have four kids and one grandchild. I can't remember the first two boys growing up when I was with my first wife. We separated when they were eight and nine. I can't remember them when they were young."

Most CEOs respond to this pressure -- and frequent self doubt -- by creating command and control systems. They take all crucial decisions, which are then meant to be executed lower down. The model depends on the CEO being an expert with good answers, typically based on their training as a finance director or deep commercial experience in their market. But the reality is almost all problems are channelled up to the top. So the CEO faces a huge burden.

Is life different for CEOs in the east compared to the west?

I interviewed a hundred leading Chinese entrepreneurs for my next book, and found the CEOs are constantly near exhaustion. In contrast to western CEOs they are tired not by a hard economic reality but because they have huge dreams. Typically, they have not yet worked out how to manage the hyper-growth their dream and the booming market are creating.

This can cause problems because businesses need the driving energy, strategic clarity, commercial grip and inspiration that a great CEO can provide if they are to deliver their full potential for their owners, staff, customers and society. Tired professional managers and exhausted dreamers will not get the best from their businesses. In the current hard economic winter in the west and booming spring of China, inspiration and trust from the top will be vital ingredients in getting the best returns from businesses.

How can CEOs learn from different cultures?

Being a CEO is a huge and complicated job, and each business needs a bespoke approach. But CEOs can make a start with five steps:

1. Clarify your dream. Western CEOs should learn from the Chinese. What do you truly dream of building? Rediscover the excitement and thrill that drove you to the top in the first place.
 
2. Build a fellowship. Most CEOs take too much direct personal control. It stifles those around you and it exhausts you. Learn to build a fellowship you trust and who will deliver for you every time.
 
3. Rekindle the spirit of your business. Narayana Murthy, founder and chairman Emeritus of Infosys, arguably the most globally successful Indian business of the last 25 years, told me: "To me, leadership is primarily about raising the aspirations of people, making people say that they will walk on water." Use your dream to inspire your teams and businesses. Share it with business partners to help you build trust.
 
4. Build a personal support system to ground you. Make rules to safeguard your recharge time, reconnect with your partners and kids and stay healthy.
 
5. Get out of the day to day. The best CEOs work on business as usual by exception, not as the norm.

They maintain a tight grip of their business with robust systems and review but do not lurch from day crisis to day crisis.

Ultimately, CEOs who are suffering need to find a new way of leading. In this high octane world, they can either work in a new way or burn out.

Credit: CNN

Why I Can't Be Bothered With The Craze For An MBA

I completed my Bachelors Degree programme some six years ago but have not bothered to get an MBA. I know many of you learned people reading this article will wonder why I can't be bothered with an MBA or any other higher degree even in this time and age when the number of Degrees a person has acquired, is used by employers as the basis for hiring and as a number one criteria to determine career success. Honestly, I feel that the place of an MBA and the likes in the path to success has been exaggerated! 

 

I say with no regret that many people have been deceived by the status quo into believing that going to school and acquiring many degrees is the key to career success. I beg to differ on this...it is a form of PONZI SCHEME!

Before I say more, let me share the comments of some learned and highly successful business owners on the subject. These are people I share the same Group (C-LEVEL CONSULTANTS NETWORK) with on LinkedIn, a social networking platform. I started a discussion thread in the Group to elicit views across the globe because the group members are from different parts of the world. This was to confirm whether or not I was right in holding the view that the role of a Degree has been exaggerated in the path to career success. Here is the discussion I posted: "Steve Jobs has demonstrated clearly that, important as it is, the role of a University Degree has been exaggerated in the path to success. Do you agree? 

I must confess that this discussion made me the most influential person in the group for three weeks. The comments that were posted on this discussion were awesome. I wish I could share all of them here but space won't allow me. So I will share just a few of them (exactly the way they were posted). They are as follows:

Lee Perla said: "The more I consider the value of a degree, the less I value a degree. I will accept that certain levels of training – usually through education (degree) -- are essential for some specialties. However, the more I ponder the question the faster a degree tends to lose value for me, especially with so many nitwits in the intelligentsia pushing so hard for more and more education and for more and more status for those who have the education.

I think we can all agree on a few things:
1. A degree is not essential to be successful or professional for well over 90% of careers. In the remaining 10%, knowledge, ability, and value add would probably outrank a degree in any objective examination.
2. The correlation between degree and monetary success is absent, especially given today’s economy.
3. Degrees “unlock doors” in many instances, but that function is rapidly going away. A recent company I worked for did away with strict degree requirements (pass/fail) for all positions; it streamlined the recruitment process and brought in at least four superstars who would not have passed the earlier filters.

My position is that our continued reliance on a degree as a binary filter is a shotgun blast to our (capitalism’s) collective foot. Just as we have learned to look past race, age, ethnic background, nose studs, politics, religion, and spiked purple hair in order to find the person offering the best value-add, we need to look past degree and know that a diploma, albeit sometimes a measure of accomplishment, is just an indicator. We need to look past that and focus on the value-add from engaged contributors."   

More comments similar to the above kept coming in for three weeks before Mr. Riise sought to dismiss my discussion thread with the following comment:

Mr. Riise: "This discussion has gone on much longer than the subject warrants - in the words of the poet Piet Hein:
If your thoughts
are few - if any
never let your words
be many

Let's move on to something more important."

                                              


Interestingly, Mr. Riise's comment above rather incited more people to comment on the issue. The first person to hit Mr. Riis was Lee Perla. He wrote:

"Mr Riise

I disagree with your dismissal. This is an important discussion because it questions the value of the “conventional wisdom” and challenges the orthodoxy that esteems degrees. In many ways and for many people, higher education is a form of Ponzi scheme perpetrated on much of society by the “educational elite.” Just as so many people would try to close off discussion of the climate issue by calling it “settled science” there appears to be a penchant for sweeping discussions like these out of sight/mind. I personally believe that it is a valid form of and subject for interrogation."    

If you also believe that this subject is a valid form of and subject for interrogation as in the words of Lee Perla, keep your fingers crossed....To be continued....   

Regards,

Edem                              

Branding Series 3

In my last post, I examined the nature and characteristics of a weak brand. If your business name cannot be remembered easily by your clients or potential clients; you never get repeat business; what you do as a business entity is not easily understood by people (i.e. you have to explain over and over again what your business is all about before someone says "oh I get it now!"; 

OR no matter how hard you try to, and how much money you spend on advertising, you seem not to be attracting clients, then you know you have a weak brand. If the above signs are showing on your business, then you have to step up your game and re-brand your business. 

But before you even start doing that, you must first be fully knowledgeable about the characteristics of strong and well established brands. So that when you start the re-branding process and some good results begin to show, you will know immediately and capitalize on them to change the fortunes of your business for life!

Here are five signs that you have a strong brand:

1. Your brand is always praised and celebrated when it comes up in conversation.
2. Your customers keep thanking you for your services; and they keep coming back.
3. You spend little money on advertising but you seem to have a strong pull of clients, some of them coming from nowhere; and they start asking for other range of services
4. When your name comes up in a conversation, people are quick to comment positively on what you do or what your company stands for. e.g. if someone should ask "do you know about The Consulting Way? Someone should be able to say "Oh, that is Edem Ayiku's blog! He provides good business advisory services."
5. People keep recommending you to others who keep recommending you to others who keep recommending you to others.....and the cycle goes on.

These are signs that you are getting there! And you have to keep doing what you did to have created that response. That is one way by which you start building a strong brand. 

In this era of strong competition in business, you can't afford not to build a strong brand.

Branding Series 2

In his book Build a Brand in 30 Days, Simon Middleton, the brand strategy guru suggests that brand is not a static thing but an ever-changing and dynamic one. He goes on to look at why brand meaning should matter to any company you can name; and why it should matter to you. Simon says that without brand every company will just be a name and nothing more. It is 'brand' that gives every business a personality and presence in the world. It is brand that enables us to understand them, and allows them to communicate with and sell to us.

If you are an individual or better still a company, brand gives you stability, growth potential, loyalty and longevity.

Now how do you know whether you have a strong brand or a weak brand? We will examine the characteristics of both weak and strong brands so that you know where your business falls.

Weak Brands exhibit a combination of the following:

• few people know about the brand
• few people understand what the brand is about or there are mixed messages or perceptions about the brand
• people can't remember the name
• you have to explain at length what your brand is about before people say "oh yes, I got it now"

If your company is characterized by a combination of any of the above, then I'm sorry to tell you that you have a weak brand. But don't beat yourself up because of this. I will give you tips to help you improve your brand in the coming days; so just watch out for the next in this series.

Peace and love to you.

Edem

Branding Series 1

One way or the other, every one of us has heard about Branding. What is it and what is it not? And how does it impact individuals and businesses? Well, I'll try as much as possible to demystify the subject in this BRANDING SERIES so that it will be clearer and less complex to comprehend. You will also be able to apply the simple principles and lessons that I'll be sharing here to your personal life as an individual and to your business, that is, if you run a business. That's the essence of my blog anyway! Adding value to people and businesses - Consulting Lesson 1: As a Consultant in any field, your first aim should be to add value to your client's business.

Now let's get on with the business of Branding. Many of us have the misconception that branding is about logos, slogans, advertising etc. And it is also a business for specially qualified executives in big companies. Sadly, branding is none of these. It is a more serious business than logos, slogans and advertising. Branding is meaning. It is simply a set of meanings that your customers and potential customers carry around about you or your business in their heads and in their hearts.

Think about it this way, what comes into your mind immediately you hear the name Puma or BBC? I bet each of us will have different sets of meanings for the two names. These meanings may be Positive or Negative. But irrespective of what those meanings are, you will find responses that are similar and cut across should you critically assess the answers of a sample size of say ten individuals. I am sure seven out of the ten will give you meanings related to sports in the case of Puma and meanings related to news or media in the case of BBC. 

So your brand is simply everything that your potential customers say, think, feel, imagine and even see about you or your organization. 

I do not intend to make my blogs long and boring so I will continue in the next Series! Stay alive and keep adding value to you and your business.

Consulting Business

Hi World,

Watch this space! Think, act and speak the Consulting Way. It's going to be business and fun on my blog.

Cheers