Saturday, October 23, 2004

A surprise from Michael Porter

In this month's (Oct 2004) HBR Michael Porter once more set a milestone in top management, when he describes seven surprises new CEOs often are facing when starting in their new job. But be warned: after reading the article you might be a bit less enthusiastic about taking on such a role in the future!

Anyway, Porters seven most common surprises are:
  • You can't run the company.
  • Giving orders is very costly.
  • It is hard to know what is really going on.
  • You are always sending a message.
  • You are not the boss.
  • Pleasing shareholders is not the goal.
  • You are still only human.

I highly recommend this article written with Jay W. Lorsch and Nitin Nohria. It will prove worthwhile for CEOs who are not so new and for people who have not yet quite made it to the top as well ;-)

A further taste of the article can be found here: The Seven Surprises