Miami Corporation
Communicate the high expectation that everyone should think strategically about what is best for the company.
“I like to ask people to answer questions as if they were sitting in the CEO’s chair. This seems to have several useful results,” says John Rau of Miami Corporation.
“It communicates the high expectation that everyone should think strategically and about what is best for the company. And people usually live up to whatever expectations you have of them.
“It gets people thinking outside their own area or function, and this often generates empathy for their colleagues in sister divisions or functions when you are asked to look at these relationships ‘from above.’
“Even before officially starting as CEO of Chicago Title and Trust Company, I gave the senior executive team an assignment to ‘write the Business Week article from five years in the future that explained what killed the company.’ It forced them to take the CEO’s perspective on the real threats to the business as it existed and accept that material changes were essential.
“In doing goal setting, I will ask the manager to write a performance review of himself or herself, giving the best possible rating and listing the achievements that led to that rating. This helps get some real focus on what excellent results really look like.
“This is a never-ending challenge—like improving your golf game— and there are similarities in how you do that.
“Watch the best and let the image of what they do sink in. Read a lot of case histories in books and current periodicals, and rethink how you would have dealt with the issues and whether other outcomes were possible so you can simulate strategic thinking in a broad variety.
“Keep yourself open to feedback on your own impact on people. Ask them to imagine they are the CEO and ask how they would decide if being CEO was their job.
“People vary. Some will give you parochial or self-interested answers and some will shift their perspective. It is the process that matters, not the answers.
“How do you get honest feedback versus people who just want to butter up the boss? You get more by giving more. It is true that, unless you set an example of being candid and of allowing constructive criticism to be given safely, all you will get is what people think you want.”