It is important to focus on building your communication, influence and listening skills. And that’s the fast track to status quo. Susan Avarde / Marketing Strategy & Customer Experience . At a certain point partners no longer want to advise, but want to control the situation. To Luis, this felt like the ultimate insult. Just to be clear about this, 90% of BCG and McKinsey partners are considering operating roles. A brilliant strategy is usually counter intuitive. The CEO can recommend a strategy but the board must endorse it. Is Luis frustrated? In many ways, this was a failing on Luis’s part. Luis did not see a long-term career in consulting and felt this would be the ideal way to transition into a corporate role. It is a common myth to think strategy is all about analyses. I have declined them, politely, for the reasons I will mention here. After his travels, he returned, fairly excited at that, and wrote up his views on the problems/opportunities the company was facing. This is a very practical point because in strategy studies it is widely overlooked. As one of them stated, “It’s very much like what an external consultant would do; the only difference is that we’re interna… Please share it. In short, this is a person whose broad experience grants them a diverse array of skills. Given his background and lack of operating experience, this was the ideal role. When Snap appointed a chief strategy officer (CSO) in 2014, the move was widely noticed — and not just because the owner of the Snapchat messaging app had picked a banker who made his name advising on the massive initial public offering of Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce group. Finding them is not the hard part; engaging and recruiting them most certainly is. Therefore, the chief strategy officer is really a wise ear for the CEO. In a previous piece and podcast I discussed why internal strategists are not given as much respect as those working on the operating side of the business. You may not have picked this up, but Luis was being forced to report to the CFO and Luis did not have a seat on the board. Chief Operating Officer, Chief Strategy Officer, Head of M&A, E-Commerce at PCS Wireless United States 500+ connections. It’s a rare breed, to say the least, but they’re the ones who can genuinely drive an organization to greatness. Furthermore, with the overwhelming pace of change of business today– and the extent to which these changes impact different functions within the organization – the realization is that strategic planning and implementation is a full-time job, requiring more discipline, structure, and rigor behind the function. That is why you typically see two types of strategy officers. FIRMSconsultingTM, StrategyTrainingTM, StrategyTVTM and The Consulting OfferTM are. In fact, BCG had been appointed to help the board determine if they should bid to enter the power sector. This is a problem since the board makes strategy decisions. I have changed some details to hide his identity since he is still in this role. The chief operating officer (COO) is the second-highest C-suite executive rank after the CEO. There’s a reason the CEO and leadership team of a company are typically the ones to create corporate strategy. If it is not counter intuitive we typically respond by claiming, “anyone could come up with this.” If a strategy is counter intuitive, then it requires significant “selling” or convincing of the management team. The operating division presidents were powerful, controlled the assets and had the support of their employees. Anyone losing power is going to fight the changes. Unfortunately, he was working on the operational side of business development: target screening processes and post-merger integration. Beyond the title, you need to consider many items when making this decision. The resulting strategy might be spot on, but when passed down the line to managers and frontline employees, the vision frequently becomes opaque and inaccessible. Not many consultants get to sit in on board meetings at the age of 24! Earlier career stints with leading consulting firms are also common, providing them a core set of strategic problem-solving skills. That said, there are commonalities in the functions they will fulfill, and within all of those areas, there’s an even split between strategic planning and execution. This shows a common misunderstanding about strategy on the part of the CEO. These opportunities may include: targeted mergers, acquisitions, brand or product-line enhancements, capital expansions, restructuring, strategic alliances and partnerships, joint ventures, operational investments, and possible portfolio divestitures. To put this in perspective, remember that the CEO cannot institute merger discussions without the board’s approval. Apply to Chief Operating Officer and more! Do you think that 4 months later he asks for time to present his final thoughts to the CEO? When I was an associate I once worked on the reorganization of a massive oil company. Instead, an extensive network and connections to key players are the best route to scout out talent. At this point, it is important to remember that the company was still moving well ahead with their program of acquiring and integrating a bucket load of companies. First Think of the time and cost savings in having the best slides available to your team. The process went well and Luis felt he had allowed the divisional leaders to explore a new more effective way to think through the process of identifying and integrating new acquisitions. Luis had spent time in his first 2 to 3 weeks touring the divisions to understand the major issues facing the company. The chief strategy officer may be able to see an additional insight, but that is not going to change the executive’s mind because the resistance to change is not driven by the validity of the answer. Luis inherited a team of 5 and was allowed to build this up to a team of about 10 people helping him think through issues important to the company. Chief Strategy Officer (CSO): A chief strategy officer (CSO) is an executive charged with helping formulate, facilitate and communicate an organization's plans for the future. They, thereafter, alter their approach to explain the best course for a company. Download the latest issue of chief sales officer to learn about CSO top priorities, framework to develop virtual sales strategy for successful sales kickoff. That’s where the role of the Chief Strategy Officer comes into play. Leverage your professional network, and get hired. Business development can be highly numbers oriented with M&A target screening or very operational around securing sites and integrating assets. Chief administrative officers (CAO) and chief operating officers (COO) are executive-level leadership positions within an organization. That is the starting point but the ability to communicate is far more important. Period. The CFO and CEO mentioned that given how much interest he had stirred among the generally impatient operating leaders, Luis should use this opportunity to help them with the integration and, therefore, build better relationships. If Luis made the right move from partner to chief strategy officer, why did it fail? Some companies, including AIG, Kimberly-Clark, Motorola, and Yahoo!, have discovered a way to fill the execution void: hire a chief strategy officer. Interact daily with all levels of the organization to enhance the culture of the company. By having Luis report to the CFO, it indicates that the CEO assumed the strategy work was finished when the analyses was done. This requires an influential individual who is practiced in getting buy in, can convey authority, and inspires honest and practical feedback from the people on the ground. Despite expecting time to educate the board on his approach, Luis was, thereafter, tasked with coming up with a post-merger integration approach all the divisions could use. Luis raised this point with the CEO who asked him to address them point by point with the CFO. When met with challenges, this is an individual who will immediately ask questions and re-evaluate decisions with speed and discernment. Traditionally, strategy hasn’t been perceived as a core function or skill, but rather as a capability or competency of the leadership team. Luis worked with his team to build a new M&A process. In most companies, the CSO works closely with the CEO, the Senior Leadership Team and, often times, the Board of Directors to develop the corporate strategy and guide the business through the strategic planning process. They will be adept at building relationships in addition to reviewing and reformulating logistical processes for strategic planning and implementation. It would have been much more effective for him to have a candid discussion about some of the priorities the CEO wanted him to tackle once he arrived. You can also decline the tracking, so you can continue to visit our website without any data sent to third party services. Learn the skills to become a leader and contribute to the world. A new metric needs to be rolled out, process efficiencies need to be created or a new operating model must be created. The appointments are effective Oct. 1. The reason is simple: no two chief strategy officer roles are the same. The term CEO stands for Chief Executive Officer and is the post of the highest ranked person in a company who is responsible for making all the managerial decisions. As a diversified conglomerate, each of these considerations had to be mapped out and a solution developed. Yes, he is. Though, the insights apply just as much to all levels of strategy leaders. Luis absolutely made the right move joining as chief strategy officer. Think about this in practical terms. The Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) will serve as a critical member of the executive management team. Considering the intellectual horsepower and the internal drive of the strategy leaders, CSO’s often have one eye on the business and the other on a path to P&L ownership. The operating units also do not report to the CFO and usually do not pay that much attention to him or her either. Starting first with Chief Commercial Officer compared to Chief Operating Officer. But, putting the wrong role into play in your growing company can spell disaster. That is pretty tough to do because the operating units do not report to the chief strategy officer and, therefore, would likely ignore him or her. Your stand begins now. These complementary skills are what you need to thrive in a corporate setting. Luis was a McKinsey strategy principal specializing in manufacturing and advanced materials. In many other cases, CSO’s are experienced executives who have worn multiple hats and have built their experience across a breadth of functions, whether it be in marketing, finance, acquisitions, technology, communications, or elsewhere. Comes the closest to setting strategy, he returned, fairly excited at that, wrote. The hard part ; engaging and recruiting them most certainly is are the same as that the. Snap had employed a CSO the analyses on hand but also the skill to explain the best course for company. 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