The Branded Pantry

Several articles have recently appeared in Wall Street Journal, RetailWire and elsewhere on the role of the CEO in leading an organization toward effective, sustainable innovation. They quote an study published by the Hay Group in Chief Executive Magazine claiming a dearth of available talent and the dire need to do more CEO-in-grooming training.

I am sure these types of articles are written periodically, and every generation of management consultant sees a decline in both talent levels and available candidates.

I cannot say I have noticed any trend changes in talent levels or in CEO availability. Senior management friends I have checked with indicate the same.

However, they, and I have seen a tendency toward mis-matches between the type of talent brought into a company and the company needs at that particular time. Specifically, I am talking about C level talent from traditional slow growth industries being brought into higher growth, market challenged, or entrepreneurial companies which have a need for leadership in significant innovation.

First let me explain what I mean by significant innovation. In this case, I am describing the process of leading a company into a major new role in current markets, or carving out a leadership position in a different market or possibly establishing a brand new market or even reacting creatively to significant changes in the company’s current market. I am NOT talking about line extensions in services or products, nor growth though acquisition of “like” products.

The requirement for involvement in day to day market understanding, market research, process research, marketing and team leadership is quite different in companies that face the need for high growth or turn-around through innovation. While the CEO does not need to be THE idea person, she/he should be the person who can tease out the innovative, the passionately and productively creative efforts from other people in the organization. When those ideas are brought up, she needs to be able to fit the pieces together or to cause others to fit those pieces together in a cohesive pattern. That pattern may not be apparent to the market, nor even to the others in the organization but it will very likely satisfy a market need/requirement that exists or is ready to explode. The ability to “get it” is critical and seems to exist in high dosages in entrepreneurs.

Often this set of CEO requirements or abilities may appear somewhat chaotic to the outside world and frankly to the world inside the company as well. Still, that ability and the willingness/eagerness to get deeply involved in all company aspects is a hallmark of CEOs who have general-ed high growth or turn around companies that rely on innovation. Steve Jobs is an excellent example as are Jeff Bezos, Meg Whitman and John Mackey. In the world of innovation to help a company in times of significant market change, Richard Kovacevich from Wells Fargo, which avoided most of the recent sub-prime lending mis-cues is a fair example.

That “roll up the sleeves” requirement in traditional brand or service companies with a stable of mature and some “growth” lines, would be disruptive and would no doubt hinder the performance of those companies. In such cases the more “hands off the details” by the book, hierarchical manager probably is the right choice.

However, when conditions change much as they have in such traditional slow growth areas as banking, media and entertainment, it may be time to bring in the CEO who can cease “being the expert on giving a positive spin to economic warnings and start analyzing the data at hand” in order to lead the necessary innovation, to paraphrase Carol Hymovitz from the Journal.