The labor market is generally undergoing change by new forms of work, increased technology use and internationalization, etc. Several temporary recruitments, more training courses, more tasks / functions and shorter managerial period are increasingly empha- sizing the CEO’s career paths and CV.
By employing a CEO, it is of course important to ensure that the CEO’s professionalism, experience and personality match the company’s strategic challenge and culture. In some turbulent recruitment processes, the CEO faces a short-term task, which places high demands on specialist competence and the rapid composition of the right management team (M & A, Turn around, Change project, etc.) in order to be able to act quickly. In other more stable recruitment processes, the CEO faces a “long-term task” that focuses on the necessary general management skills that are required in an on-going business.
The time we live in requires rapid execution on the goal and strategy, why the new CEO begins to prepare for the 100-day plan, before his/her accession, including organizational review, etc. In the latter case (“long-term task”), we experience the CEO who already announced in the recruitment process that he / she plans to “bring” some good, well-known colleagues from management teams in the companies, they are just leaving.
There are, of course, some positive aspects of such an act, but also obvious negative aspects such as: lack of deeper understanding of the situation, respect for existing organization, nepotism, etc. There is also a risk of sending a signal to the existing organization that it does not work well with frustration and lack of team spirit as a consequence. In addition, coworkers brought by the new CEO can end up having an uncertain existence the day the CEO must at worst leave the company, and they might not be part of the continuing organization.
Furthermore, it is a wellknown tool within “competitor surveillance” that by studying the previous CEO / Leader Group’s action, it is likely to predict the future behavior in the new company. Information that will always be valuable to the company’s competitors.
The new CEO must, of course, conduct a thorough analysis of the company together with his/her management team and employees, and make his/her own experience the “first days” before communicating a new goal and strategy. The new CEO who already plans the composition of his new management team without sticking the “finger into the ground” does not understand the deeper meaning of the term “diversity in the management team” and risks disqualifying himself from the future CEO challenge, the way we see it.
