GEO Principle Blog

Remember the fundamentals

I had an opportunity to listen to Carly Fiorina speak to a group of 1,700 business people in California earlier this week. Fiorina was president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005. She was chairman of the company's board during five of those years. She is a very impressive person; her business career started with a job as an executive secretary.

"The fundamentals have never been more important," she said, describing the attributes of effective leadership.What are those fundamentals? She said they are common sense, good judgment, perspective and ethics. To my mind, those are just corporate code words for faith. She never used the word God in her speech, but really she was encouraging people to bring God to work, that is, live their faith at the office.

She said that in the dot-com boom/bust, the Enron scandal and now the financial crisis, too many people abandoned common sense and good judgment, they lost perspective and they didn't give enough consideration to ethics.

Fiorina talked about the power people enjoy today as a result of technology, noting that "any job can go anywhere." She said individuals today "have more power than ever before. Technology allows us to do anything." But just because people can do anything, doesn't mean they should. And it is those fundamentals -- common sense, good judgment, perspective and ethics -- that help people discern what they should do. Fiorina talked about a lot of things in her 45 minute speech, but I think that was the sum of her presentation.

It is easy, of course, to forget the fundamentals. Sure things and quick bucks tempt people into all kinds of deals that make no sense, defy good judgment, lack perspective and ignore ethics. Millions of people were swept up into the housing/mortgage/CMO euphoria that has resulting in the biggest financial mess since the Depression. These aren't bad people, but they might be people who forgot one or two fundamentals.

Success in the corner office

What does it take to be a successful CEO? Based on more than 20 years of experience as a business journalist –- and 16 years of running my own company -– here is what I think it takes:

First, a CEO needs a sense of mission. This is an unwavering drive to accomplish something. A sense of mission, usually accompanied by a sense of urgency, comes from being able to see the big picture clearly, and from being able to bring together assets and opportunities in a way that others are missing.

Second, a CEO needs a thick skin, or call it conviction. There are always others around who will tell you what to do. Many of them will tell you that your ideas are all wrong. Sometimes, people who are supposed to make decisions, fail to do so in a timely manner. Running an organization is all about making decision. Over the years, I have seen that many excellent people in the workforce really cannot make meaningful decisions. They wait for others to tell them what to do. A CEO can’t wait for others to tell him what to do. You can’t settle for the default path established by regulators, attorneys, convention and legacy. Building on that sense of mission, you have to be willing to make the decisions that turn mission into reality, even when others tell you that you are on the wrong path.

Third, a CEO needs a desire to communicate. No CEO can do it alone. He or she needs colleagues and associates to make things happen. They need to hear from their leader motivating ideas that excite them about acting. A CEO should welcome the opportunity to tell the company’s story. He should create opportunities to share his vision. And it’s best if these messages come through personal contact. If that’s not practical in large organizations, then use technology that allows you to communicate through images as well as audio.

Fourth, a CEO needs a sense of humility. This is something I picked up out of Jim Collins’ book, “Good to Great.” He interviewed CEOs at hundreds of companies and found out that the very best of them possessed a unique humility. At first I was surprised to read this, but as I thought about it, I could see where it makes sense. Being humble means you acknowledge to yourself that you don’t know everything already. This opens you up to learning and to really listening to others. This kind of information-gathering and relationship-building are natural components to leadership.

And the fifth thing a CEO needs to be really successful is an understanding that it is God who provides. This is the secret weapon that most people miss. This understanding takes the anxiety out of risk. It doesn't change risk, but it makes it much easier to accept. Most people are risk-averse and without a sense that you will be okay –- that God will provide –- you are not likely to take the risk necessary to reap big rewards. It’s really not in our nature. That is why we need something outside of our nature -– God –- to really succeed.