What the Merrill debacle teaches us about CEO succession

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  invictallc11/01/07 Report as spam
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  CEO Personalities

  One big area we have to look at is the CEO personalities. Working with Fortune 500 companies for half my life, I can tell you that one big area that we as consultants fail to recognize is how important a CEO's personality is in driving the overall direction of the company. During my times working with CEO's of fortune 500 companies, I have come across a lot of different CEO personalities. One CEO personality that was common was one that wanted to work hard for the company to make it a success as long as it would not lead to their own job security. In this case the CEO would nurture and advance certain people within the company ranks that they felt was strong performer but would be someone that would be loyal to the CEO. We saw that people who were strong performers but might now always agree with the CEO or would question certain things would eventually be "weakened" by the CEO. This type of CEO personality was quite frequent especially in more conservative industires such as banking, energy and manufacturing. Other areas such as e-commerce, online infrastructure development and online marketing companies, we saw a very different attitude where Senior managers were encouraged to question the company direction and were rewarded when they actually went against the CEO and ended up being right.
  
  Asif Ahmed
  www.heliocorporate.com

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  mundox11/01/07 Report as spam
  2

  RE: What the Merrill debacle teaches us about CEO succession

  Succession planning is a farce in most Fortune 500. It is given lip service by the board, Sr. Management and HR promotes the myth. Look at Citi, in order to find a CFO someone had to hold the seat warm while an external search was conducted. Its hard to believe that in a company with a workforce of 1/2 million a suitable candidate was not already identified as part of the succession management program (If a real one existed). The only Fortune 100 company that seems to regularly manage, in the true sense, succession planning is GE.
  
  -Mundo

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  bholstein11/05/07 Report as spam
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  Only Good Co is GE?

  That isn't quite right. P&G, UPS, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, United
  Technologies and IBM all do it right. You just don't often hear about those
  successions because they happen so smoothly...Bill Holstein

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  Hashim Kammoona11/04/07 Report as spam
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  RE: What the Merrill debacle teaches us about CEO succession

  Almost every boss does it and that who says he does it not is a liar. But Stanley O???Neal the ex CEO of Merrill Lynch possibly was too naive to cover self. This issue is BIG it is life issue. I think that further articles, lectures, conferences and books must debate this and to find solutions.
  UN is debating it somehow. In debating nations to be ???Democracy or no Democracy??? that is the question.
  
  With Best Regards
  Hashim Kammoona, B.Sc. Arch. HD T&R Planning
  Senior Manager/Master Planning