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In Search of The CEOs

Do You Have it in You?
- Subir Roy Choudhury

he philosophy of business remaining the same,

a dramatic paradigm shift has been witnessed
in the scale and style of business management
in the last two decades.
Without exception, the average young executive
in his mid-thirties seems to be utterly impatient to hit
the deck and become a CEO by the morrow. It
instantly reminds one of physically challenged Wilma
Rudolph who struck gold by clocking eleven seconds
to run her hundred meters in the 1960 Rome
Olympics. In later years she joked: She could run fast,
she said because as a child in a poor family with
limited food, she had to beat 18 other children in the
Rudolph household to get to the dining table first. If
this poignant joke is a justification for the young
executives in a hurry - so be it. After all, an
organisation may have 18 Vice-Presidents but just the
one CEO. In a scenario, such as this, search and
recruitment of CEOs assumes paramount importance.
Let us begin with the expected qualities or the
desirable prerequisites to become a CEO. The CEO
should be a performance driven positive thinker
who leads by examples and treats leadership as a
task to be performed and not a status to be enjoyed.
He is an entrepreneur capable of taking risks
without being risky. Essentially a daytime visionary
and not a night time dreamer, who knows well and
truly how long to cling and when to quit. Ofcourse,
this breed is rare but they are the revered and
fortunate few who receive the ceremonial 21 gun
farewell salute unlike most who make a pathetic back
door exit in their chauffeur-less limousines.
Most HR pundits feel that the tenure of a CEO
should be limited to four years and may stretch, at
best, by another four years on the lines of the
American President. They argue that indefinite tenure
renders
a
CEO
complacent. Thereafter,
the indolent chief is
surrounded
by
apparently unalarming
sycophants, frightened
courtiers and seemingly

unambitious yes-men. Prolonged tenure also results

in mass exodus of aspiring and talented executives
seeking greener pastures leaving the organisation to
survive in sublime mediocrity.
In family run big business houses with huge
turnovers, it is invariably the dynastic rule where
inheritance outsmarts competence hands down and
the coronated successor is always some one from the
family. It is rumoured that most public sector CEOs
are appointed with a specific understanding that they
be merely line toeing generals. In the process, they
have limited authority and freedom but unlimited
tenure. A management student compared these CEOs
with the Moghul period obsolete cannons with a
subtle pun hire you may but fire you cannot.
Barring the handpicked multinationals, in other
business houses, the search and combing operation
for the CEOs takes place in management workshops,
professional business seminars, chamber meetings
and very often to glamourise the appointment the deal
is finally closed over a game of golf where the
incumbent is asked to take charge much before the
close of the 18th hole. Should CEOs be groomed from
within? Some experts do prescribe this as a viable and
attractive alternative. For this purpose, they suggest
a bold and visible retirement chart for key position
holders in the organisation and a firmly planted, well
branching out succession tree.
Inspired by Luigi Pirandellos famous play Sei
personaggi in circa dautore(Six characters in search
of an author), Frank Rovenskropt authored his
satirical fiction entitled In search of a CEO. In the
penultimate chapter of the book he finally abandons
his hunt for a CEO well realising that the peak is too
high for a mortal to scale. According to him, the
coveted summit is the exclusive domain of either the
reptiles or the eagles.
Alarmed? Never be. After all, business means
continuity and so be the search for the CEOs.

The author was a practising manager and has held senior

positions in several multinationals

Advanc'edge MBA April 2004