A SECOND VIEW

What a CEO should focus on to avoid the boot

• Seek understanding • Drive vision • Create capacity • Generate alignment • Focus on delivery

Source: Egremont Group

Mumbai?s Archbishop Ivan Dias is not a gambling man. He would be horrified, therefore, to be told that they are betting on him at www.betfair.com. He could be one of the contenders for the papacy when the current incumbent dies. Elsewhere on the site, they are betting on which Canadian CEO will be the next to get the boot. Arthur Millholland, CEO of Calgary-based oil exploration company Oilexco, is a hot tip to lose his job by April 30, 2005. There are eight more sackable CEOs on the list.

There is no such equivalent pastime in the US. First of all, it is illegal. But that?s something that has never stopped any American entrepreneur. More importantly, there are too many CEOs being sacked these days and the field is wide open.

HP CEO Carly Fiorina?s ouster is old hat now. But Boeing also recently gave the boot to CEO Harry Stonecipher for having an affair with a female colleague. Most of the discussions around these two high-profile CEO sackings have centred around gender issues. But there is something more important that needs discussion. Today, the CEO is a threatened species. Does it make sense to try and become a CEO at all?

?If you look at the top 500 Indian companies, you will find that most of them are family-managed, public sector units (PSUs) or MNC subsidiaries,? says a corporate analyst. ?In a family-managed concern, if a non-family member is the CEO, most often his job is just to carry the owner?s briefcase. In PSUs, the CEO has to take permission from Delhi for anything important. And CEOs of MNC subsidiaries have to kowtow to the dictates of their parents, now that India is becoming an increasingly important market. So the question of trying to become a CEO is largely redundant. Where is the opportunity to become a CEO??

Today?s crop of green-behind-the-ears managers will probably find a different corporate world when they are vying for the corner office 20 years hence. First, there may not be regular CEOs at all. Temporary CEOs are becoming quite acceptable even today.

Second, thanks to CEO excesses in companies such as Enron and Tyco, the corporate world is moving towards a board-managed system. It is happening in India too, with corporate governance issues reaching centrestage.

Tomorrow may not have a corner office at all. Even if it does exist, there will be four corner offices, each containing an equally powerful individual. But what does it mean for the job aspirant and those climbing up the ladder? Answers the analyst quoted earlier: ?Put your leadership skills on the backburner. The need of the hour is becoming a team player.? You may not make it to CEO that way. But it is the best way to prepare for a world where the CEO may not be around.