I am a big fan of the late Peter Drucker just because he had a healthy dose of common sense and he never became so enamored with
the academic pursuit of management that he lost track of the real world. This being the case, it was fun to see our CEO recollecting the teachings of the “father of modern management” in the May HBR article titled “What Only the CEO Can Do” by A.G. Lafley.
An advanced copy of the article was posted on http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/ but it seems to have been removed. I was tempted to push up a pdf of the article but I am sure that will violate some copy write someplace. Conceptually, the article has four main points: 1. The CEO needs to link in the meaningful outside world 2. The CEO needs to decide what business the company is in (and NOT in) 3. The CEO needs to be the Master of Balance between today and tomorrow and 4. The CEO must set / refine / reshape / the values and standards of the company based on internal and External stakeholders. Once the article is reposted on HBR.org, I will put up a link. If you are dying to read it, drop me an IM.
Personal Action Steps: Find, value, and use the outside perspective
Shawn Grubb
The Critiques