– to Reengineer by Creative Destruction
In a post COVID world, the CEO has to revisit the past, reengineer the present, crystal gaze into the future and possibly relook at what to keep and what to let go.
As everyone grapples with COVID which will not go away soon, the business model has to be “Unlocked”. The unlocking will take different dimensions, with different sectors, different regions-countries, and opening up in different ways and at a differing pace. The virus resurgence will likely bring about renewed restrictions.
In situations such as the Great Depression in 1920, the World War II, the Financial Crisis of the 90’s a CEO had to be adept at the P&L, productivity metrics & number crunching, spending time to decide on launches and reenergizing the PLC.
However today these factors are hygiene and the need is the ability to have an extremely high EQ and a personality to integrate with the teams as they get more result oriented, ready to experiment and more tech-savvy.
Integration is required across teams, which now meet on cloud meetings viz — ZOOM, across time-zones, departments with the absence of geographical boundaries. A CEO and an aspirant needs to be ready to disrupt, be tech savvy and highly EQ enabled to manage the emotional upheaval people will go through as everything around them changes — have the intellect to identify trends, be courageous to plan on what to keep and what to let go and be able to handle diversity of thought.
Mckinsey in its article, The Toughest Leadership Test avers “The pressures can seem daunting. Coping with the sudden shutdown of the global economy was hard enough; figuring out how to restart in such an uncertain environment is, if anything, even harder, many told us. CEOs are expected to show “deliberate calm” and “bounded optimism.” Everyone wants them to demonstrate empathy — and, at the same time, be highly engaged and fact based in their actions. They are expected to make a positive difference in people’s lives with their leadership and wield both telescope and microscope adroitly”
It is said that a crisis brings about the best & the worst in people and separates the men from the boys.
The moment of truth for the CEO is to- Reimagine the Business, to Reengineer and maybe destroy the “old way of working” and adapt to the NOW, and also manage the family at home and keep smiling.
As a CEO are you ready?
