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CEO - not entirely an insider
My recent experience made me think through the role of a CEO in context of representative of inside of organization and outside. While CEO is an entirely internal role paid for by the organization to promote its private objectives, to that extent, its perfectly fine if this role always remain sided with internal interests; I have a feeling that a CEOs role has also to do with some commitments towards the outsiders. Lets dwell deeper in this.Typically, if as a customer, you feel upset about the service of organization, you want to write to the CEO of the organization. As a vendor, if your payments get delayed, you connect with the CEO or as an ex-employee, if your final dues aren't coming in time, you do the same. SO in all these cases, if our first assumption about a CEO being a total insider was true, all these outsider actually would not hold any hope for favorable response from CEO's office, isn't it. Fact is that, most of the time, outsiders do get attended to their concerns by writing to CEOs. This also suggests that not just the outsiders consider a CEO as someone who'll hear them as a neutral party but even CEOs see themselves responsible for even outside interests in outsiders dealings with their organizations. Call it corporate governance, or fair play, or organization culture, whatever; role of CEO does seem to have an accountability towards outsiders in safeguarding their interests along with driving business interests of their payee organizations.Do outsiders also expect some assurance from the CEO of the organization that they interact with? Are there some assumptions here, let me try to lists down a few, my own guess;1. Outsiders expect CEOs to be people with high integrity to society at large, sure about value of their own product/ service and sincere towards their organizations dealings with outsiders.
2. They also expect CEOs to be by and large fair. Along with that , they also feel that CEO is capable of taking the risk of siding with outsiders if fairness demands as long as its not entirely against organization's interest.
3. They also believe that a CEO is fully capable of going extra mile, put extra authority, spend extra time in helping outsiders, if she thinks its fair to do so.Now some of this might not be true or consistent across the fraternity, but by and large, whether written or not, CEOs do seem to have the responsibility of guarding outside interests of people who deal with their organizations.I once met a senior lawyer, who told me that if he is working for me, he'll write documents that are fully one sided in my favor; I am sure people see CEOs differently.Its a complex subject and I have just shared my opinion. More comments are welcome.
2. They also expect CEOs to be by and large fair. Along with that , they also feel that CEO is capable of taking the risk of siding with outsiders if fairness demands as long as its not entirely against organization's interest.
3. They also believe that a CEO is fully capable of going extra mile, put extra authority, spend extra time in helping outsiders, if she thinks its fair to do so.Now some of this might not be true or consistent across the fraternity, but by and large, whether written or not, CEOs do seem to have the responsibility of guarding outside interests of people who deal with their organizations.I once met a senior lawyer, who told me that if he is working for me, he'll write documents that are fully one sided in my favor; I am sure people see CEOs differently.Its a complex subject and I have just shared my opinion. More comments are welcome.
Monday Morning at Diamond Mine
"There's a Diamond in each one of you" - were the words with which we started this work week. Not a bad start would say even the pessimists.
Team members of Rigved - The retail Infrastructure company headquartered in Mumbai were not showing any signs of Monday morning blues when I walked in for the session. A neat rug on the floor of the conference room was the seat for all from CEO to the Office boy all sitting at random. And while the facilitator moved on to variety of things from small prayer to, moments of silence, deep breathing, praising the colleague, some self discovery, I remained amazed at how an hour on Monday morning can energize teams for the day, the week and may be longer. For some members, this was the first session to see how each member has things to deal with, for some the rare praise from someone they never thought even looks at them.
I have by now met at least 100 - 200 CEOs who have spoken about transformation of their teams. I have seen less than 5 really attempting that. A few more have delegated it to senior people (you can guess the result).
So what did Nirav do? You walk into Rigved office and you'd realize the attention of the CEO in everything around. Colours please you, walls talk, reception lets you catch a breath, you can visit rest room without infection worries and I can go on and on... point is, these are not small things for Rigved, these are essentials. No surprise then, that Nirav doesn't find it difficult to find that hour on Monday morning, when team members get their concentration right and warm up with other members to head into the work week.
Rigved operates in fiercely competitive space and they know how to fight it out. So next time you want transformation, don't talk.....take a walk around work bay, you'll know where to start...
