What Chief Executives Really Want?

What Chief Executives Really Want?

[A short comment on a recent Business Week article: What Chief Executives Really Want, by Frank Kern:]

First, great article. Second, the writer suggested the following:

CEO's want "Creative Disruption".

"Creative leaders do the following...

• Disrupt the status quo.

• Disrupt existing business models.

• Disrupt organizational paralysis."

I have two points that I have to make:

1. Those that bring creative disruption into an organization must be well versed in change management or else they are in for an incredible battle. The new creative leader must be able to get the buy-in from all parties in order to not be seen as the guy who just wants to change things, but as the guy who is going to make things better without "altering" people's lives in a drastic way. Those new leaders must also be able to provide some type of assurance in an unsure and changing environment and that is very difficult.

2. FINALLY! I have been advocating this for years and I am so glad to see that at least it is getting a little more mainstream attention. I have been telling people for 5 years that the age of information is over and we are and have entered what I call the "conceptualization age". If you want to succeed or you want your business to grow, you must not only be able to harness the information and the technology that is out there right now, but you better be able to put forth a new concept and be able to take that brilliant new creative concept and wrap it up nice and pretty so that everyone wants a piece of it. It will be the new "concepts" based on real time information that propel a business into new profitability.

I will have to write up a full paper on my thoughts on this topic with complete resources, as this should be a growing area of business management.