The 8 Strategic Responsibilities of the CEO

A friend forwarded me Professor Daniel Goleman’s article “The Focused Leader” from the Harvard Business Review. It was an exciting report about leaders’ focus, but I was struck by an understated, secondary mention of strategy that hit me like a mallet.

“Any business school course on strategy will give you the two main elements: exploiting your current advantage and exploring new ones.” Let’s first focus on the two action words, “exploitation and exploration.” Those two words made me consider writing this post regarding our strategy responsibilities.

When I work with CEOs, one of the most challenging projects is how we can identify and exploit our unique selling proposition. Our viewpoint on our point of differentiation is frequently muddled and clouded by our opinions, recent customer feedback from the whiners, and a parochial viewpoint from valued staff members.

We need absolute clarity, courage, and enthusiasm to define and defend what makes our firm truly different. Another real opportunity overlooked is devoting time and energy to exploring new advantages. This is the most challenging task for the leader because it is a green field of creativity, and we are chained to our past success and legacy cash flow. We subordinate this important job because it is uncomfortable, risky, and unfavorable in most companies.

My challenge to you as the CEO is… you should:

1. Courageously explore new markets
2. Vigorously probe the competition for weaknesses and opportunities
3. Find the internal capability and capacity weaknesses
4. Identify and carve out new market niches
5. Experiment, test, and measure results
6. Exploit opportunities in the marketplace
7. Fight the internal tide that everything is OK.
8. Reposition the business

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Coach Dave