Economy, Strategy & Finance Data Reactions

Imagine a towering, sheer cliff. Imagine a deep canyon below, full of ruined cities. Now imagine, on the canyon’s other side, a bountiful plain, rippling in the breeze, stretching into the sunset. Welcome to the economy of the twenty-first century.

There are numerous lessons from the Chris Christie “bridgegate” scandal for people in high-profile leadership roles. Here are a few. First, power comes with a) visibility and b) envy. If you are working at a minimum wage job, few people are going to want to trade places with you.

Not all directors perform equally well once inside. Sometimes a prince in other realms can even turn into a petty gabber, the very opposite of what English novelist George Eliot had championed: “Blessed is the man who having nothing to say abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.”

Selecting a new chief executive is critical because so much rides on a positive outcome. Is this the right person to lead the company in this particular business, at this particular time? Will he or she collaborate with the board, or fight it?

In 1981, Peter Drucker delivered a lecture at New York University. He offered provocative prescriptions for coping in a world in which “the real challenge is to decide what you are doing” in the face of tremendous “technological change or market change.”

Last week, an executive who was on the verge of being promoted to head his large global publicly traded company asked for my advice on how to be effective as a brand new CEO. I gave him a list and he was so appreciative that I was motivated to write a blog about it.