Theory of the CEO (BSSE, Monday, Week 13)
building-and-sustaining-successful-enterprisesyear-twoInteresting commentary on the capabilities and limitations of the class...
If you're trying to build an airplane, which is more important to understand: gravity or Bernoulli's Principle?
"BSSE is a course about gravity." -- Clay Christensen
Our class section seemed to think gravity is more important, which makes no sense to me. I can design a (bad, probably doomed) plane with a decent understanding of Bernoulli's Principle and some intuitive knowledge about the world (don't make the plane too heavy). Gravity gives me almost no insight into how to make a plane fly; it only describes for me how poorly-made planes fall.
Several theories what CEOs do:
(1) CEO is in a reacting role, driven by expectations of investors and analysts => "Forces act on me; what's important is that I stay in balance and do what the Street wants."
(2) CEO puts together a cohort of players/a winning team; CEO as teacher => "Does everyone involved understand how we make money so they will all perform their roles? I want no surprises."
(3) CEO is a communicator of his vision/balancer vis-a-vis shareholders => "Be trusted, so that my company can make good long-term decisions."
I am intuitively drawn to (2) and (3), mostly because I think leaders actually should have insight into the best strategic/tactical path for their firms.
The "leader as caretaker" in (1) seems implausible.