Compare these two statements:

Has the time come for CEO Version 3.0?

The first iteration made its mark in the 1990s, as chief executives like Sanford Weill, Gerald Levin, John Welch Jr. and Michael Eisner built empires, and their profiles, at the companies they ran: Citigroup, Time Warner, GE and Disney.

When their shares deflated earlier this decade after the tech bubble burst and various corporate scandals unfolded, a new cadre moved in: the Fix-it Men. They were less charismatic leaders like Charles Prince 3rd of Citigroup and Richard Parsons of Time Warner, whose job it was to repair the excesses and mistakes of their predecessors.

Now, management experts and longtime observers of corporate America say, the current environment demands, and is attracting, yet another kind of chief executive: the team-builder.

“It’s someone who can assemble a team that functions as smoothly as a jazz sextet,” said Warren Bennis, a professor of management at the University of Southern California.
International Herald Tribune, November 9, 2007

The clock is ticking faster for private equity CEOs—and their millions of employees—all over the world. Coming soon to business pages and water coolers near you: tales of quick and brutal corporate breakups, rollups, and reorgs, an onslaught that could rival the downsizing binge of the early 1990s. “There will be radical internal restructurings,” predicts Colin C. Blaydon, director of the center for private equity at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business….

With financial conditions so tight, buyout chiefs’ best shot at generating strong returns in the U.S. lies in their ability to make the companies they control more profitable—slashing costs, boosting sales in global markets, and paying down debt….

For the minions at these companies, meanwhile, the career options may be dismayingly limited in coming years: get with the new, gut-wrenching program or get out.
Business Week, November 5, 2007

In juxtaposition to these two opposing views of corporate culture is that oh-so-minor-but-necessary ingredient of success—people. And not just workers, but people at all levels from executives to janitors.

Granted, I have an extreme bias for cultures predicated on CEO v3.0 MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy)™, but that’s because no one has ever managed to convince me that people enjoy spending 10± hours a day running as fast as they can with fear as their prime motivating factor.

Fear does not stimulate creativity and innovation, improve street rep, enhance recruitment or improve retention—in fact, it does the exact opposite.

For years, senior execs have jumped through hoops to work for private equity just because it was private and they believed that it shielded them from Wall Street’s unending quarterly pressures. Whoops, guess they should have thought it through a bit more.

That doesn’t mean that v3 CEOs will all be under forty and found in startups. First, being a team-builder is a function of your MAP and MAP comes in all flavors in all ages. Secondly, (and I can already hear the howls of outrage) it takes experience to run a company of any size, but especially a large one. While age doesn’t guarantee experience—you can have ten years of experience or one year ten times—it does guarantee the opportunity to gain it. Team-building CEOs have team-oriented MAP, experience of the been there/done that/let’s-find-a-way-to-do-it-better variety, the confidence and security to surround themselves with the best people possible and a modest ego.

Demographics say that the people-shortage isn’t going away any time soon; tighter money requires doing more with less; you know what I think, but which type of leader do you think will win?

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 4:00 am and is filed under About Leadership, management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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