All over the world, there is a serious shortage of ‘new global age’ CEOs. Here are the three reasons and the critical transitory factors...
Recliner Mounted: During the last millennia, in the ‘age of scarcity’ when mediocrity was sufficient to guarantee rapid success, CEOs were formally attired, big, tall and robust; they came with firm handshakes, all smiles with bright, shiny teeth personalities. Most had little or no knowledge of the business operation itself, but they were experts and savvy in wheeling and dealing shenanigans. They roamed the business empires. They made their mark, but added little or nothing to the creative processes necessary for continued growth and prosperity. Small or medium size enterprises were not important at all. Only mega businesses existed.
Floor Runners: As we approached the year 2000, the CEO picture was changing. By this time, CEOs were faced with fierce competition and were forced plunge into the organisation’s operations and could be seen casually marching around the floors of the organisation encouraging people to improve performance while keeping an eye on securing their own mega bonuses for improvements. Process improvement became the buzz phrases for the period. These transitions benefitted businesses all over the world.
Formula Drivers: Today, enriched in the ‘age of abundance’, where for every new idea there are thousands of better ones, the new global age CEOs are seen only as great symbols of superior performance. As we approach the third decade of our new millennia, they have become uniquely invisible; they blend among the pack with the flat hierarchical organisation. They are the real experts; they know what to do and how to get it done; they are committed and dedicated to their craft, working inside and outside the organisation; the 9-to-5 formats are gone and around-the-clock global interaction is the norm. Sometimes you see them and sometimes you don't; they are the phantom force and their presence is always felt within the organisation. They are leaders because they lead; they are CEOs because they can execute as chief executive officers; they do not require a business card title or a corner office to tell them what to do. They have the most powerful technology at their fingertips and they are aware of every action, reaction, and every counter action taking place within the organisation. They are global age CEOs and the most sought after human resource today.
How do you become a global age CEO? A strategic plan of action
Mastery of Pressurised Distillation:
Distillation of foggy ideas, illusionary detection, and even at times, hallucinations are all critical to sequentially form and transform raw ideas into vision. It’s a good thing for mind to drift in aimless wander. These loose ideas are gifts of growth and we must cherish them, play with them and stack up piles of unusual observations because such thoughts end up creating true vision. Anybody capable of dreaming can create and develop vision. Job titles, cubicles and corner offices seriously hinder such processes. Equally, an entire floor lined up with swinging hammocks is not needed in order to gain innovative advancement or superiority of ideas. What is needed instead is a company wide philosophy that embraces open challenges to any and all ideas, including the current enforcement of the so-called vision of the firm. High pressure distillation is required. True CEOs will learn to discover the real truth about the corporate vision. They, with the help of their team, will determine direction and implement bottom line plans to reach their goals. They will no longer join the majority of organisations all over the world who are occupied in some weird endless chase without any serious advancement?
Fact: Most firms have a single minded money making notion, twisted to look like a vision.
Study: Detroit Auto Industry, Kodak and compare them to winners like Apple, LinkedIn.
Action: Challenge and find deeper and more intricate meaningful aspects for the firm.
Mastery of Prismatic Crystallisation:
Various styles and types of vision, once crystallised properly, define success and super-success. The crystallisation process demands that we create a three dimensional version of vision. A true vision is visible and almost touchable whereby there are central points of discussions and reviews, evaluation and refinements. This is where the next generation of the greatest global success stories will be found. When personal ownership of vision is in place and hidden in the file drawers of the founders’, the so-called vision is untouchable and it becomes a corporate taboo to peek. Challenging the so-called vision is unheard of. Today, foggy and non-sequential after thoughts identified as crystallised vision is where the majority of organisations are stuck. In these organisations, finger pointing becomes the norm and lacks of sales or funding becomes the main mantra with all blamed on human performance and talent issues. Those fancy slogans claiming the organisation’s vision that are framed across cubicle should be replaced by open discussions across the organisation. All aspects of the organisation should be open for debate, challenge, dialogue, and evaluation. The corporations claiming never being stuck are rather on a silent rotation to oblivion due to the lack of clarity and pending rectifying actions. It is time to calibrate prismatic crystallisation and grab the vision and make sure all can see it and manage it.
Fact: Many organisations are treated like gospel and only after bankruptcy discover that their ‘lack of vision’ becomes the talk of the world.
Study: Radio Shack, GM, WorldCom and compare them to winners like Airbnb, Google.
Action: Call a big meeting on this subject and moderate an open and candid debate.
Mastery of Rapid-fire Execution:
Frequently the greatest concepts and crystallised visions remain dormant, they lie around and collect dust because of lack of execution. Entrepreneurial talent is wasted when brilliant minds, with real clarity, lack execution or operational skills or vice versa. New global age thinking coupled with the execution of these ideas is so critical today. We must take advantage of the abundance of too many brilliant ideas. When entrepreneurs are not executives or executives are not entrepreneurial a new style of operational merging is required. It must become our mission and passion to discover global age execution. We must mandate rapid-fire actions all across the board because it is the depth and knowledge that make rapid fire execution a normal high performance process. Unskilled teams will not be able to operate in this arena and as such fall into a death trap. The organisation and its teams must operate like a well written and directed ballet, where roles are clear and executed to perfection.
Fact: Often the best ideas of an organisation have the worst of downstream executions.
Study: Volkswagen, Sears, Xerox and compare them to winners like Dyson, Tesla.
Action: Daydream all day, but execute every second.
CEO Wanted:
All over the world, there is a deep and silent realisation that current corporate affairs are not headed in the right direction. Equally true is the fact that there is a major revolution of restless entrepreneurial talent anxiously waiting to energise their own spin to fix the problems and bring local-global prosperity. Also In this void, there is a critical shortage of bold new global age executives with has the talent, skill, and where-with-all to lead their organisations in this new and demanding environment. It’s time to identify the core issues, rectify and apply solutions.
It is time to team with like minded forces and create unheard of before successes and acquire global age thinking, knowledge and execution.
Naseem Javed is a corporate philosopher and founder of the Image Supremacy Movement. He is a world recognized authority on global digital trends, image complexities how they impact business performances and create global age skill shifts. He is founder of ABC Namebank, a world-class speaker, syndicated columnist and author of several books. His recent work on entrepreneurial leadership and innovative performance Mentorian Worldwide is getting global attention.
LinkedIn: naseemjaved
