Bursting Out of the CEO Bubble

Hal Gregersen

<article-ideainbrief class="article-ideainbrief">
 <h4 class="ideainbrief-title">In Brief</h4>
 <div class="ideainbrief-contents">
  <h5>The Problem</h5>
  <p>Power and prestige insulate most CEOs from ideas and information that might alert them to looming opportunities or threats.</p>
  <h5>The Solution</h5>
  <p>Innovative executives work hard to break down the walls surrounding them by gaining exposure to a broad range of constituents and venturing off the beaten path.</p>
  <h5>The Emphasis</h5>
  <p>These CEOs actively seek out situations where they may be unexpectedly wrong, unusually uncomfortable, and uncharacteristically quiet. This helps them ask the right questions, discover previously unknown territory, and detect important but weak signals.</p>
 </div>
</article-ideainbrief><p>When you’re the CEO of a large organization—or even a small one—your greatest responsibility is to recognize whether it requires a major change in direction. Indeed, no bold new course of action can be launched without your say-so. Yet your power and privilege leave you insulated—perhaps more than anyone else in the company—from information that might challenge your assumptions and allow you to perceive a looming threat or opportunity. Ironically, to do what your exalted position demands, you must in some way escape your exalted position.</p>

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<p>Although CEOs are charged with recognizing when their firms need a major change in direction, their power and privilege often insulate them from information that would help them perceive looming opportunities or threats. No one in the company wants to tell the CEO of problems, much less that he or she is mistaken.</p>
<p>In interviews with 200 executives, Gregersen came across hardly any who didn&#8217;t recognize this challenge. But he also saw that a few innovative leaders, like Walt Bettinger of Charles Schwab and Marc Benioff of Salesforce, have found a way to overcome it. Such executives take pains to get honest feedback from a broad range of constituents. They also venture off the beaten path, regularly putting themselves into situations where they are unusually uncomfortable, unexpectedly wrong, and uncharacteristically quiet. This helps them ask the right questions, discover new insights, and detect early weak signals of impending market shifts.</p>

Bursting the CEO Bubble

Although CEOs are charged with recognizing when their firms need a major change in direction, their power and privilege often insulate them from information that would help them perceive looming opportunities or threats. No one in the company wants to tell the CEO of problems, much less that he or she is mistaken. In interviews with 200 executives, Gregersen came across hardly any who didn’t recognize this challenge. But he also saw that a few innovative leaders, like Walt Bettinger of Charles Schwab and Marc Benioff of Salesforce, have found a way to overcome it. Such executives take pains to get honest feedback from a broad range of constituents. They also venture off the beaten path, regularly putting themselves into situations where they are unusually uncomfortable, unexpectedly wrong, and uncharacteristically quiet. This helps them ask the right questions, discover new insights, and detect early weak signals of impending market shifts.

Bursting the CEO Bubble

Summary.

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