The CEO’s Most Pressing People Challenges

Lisa, thanks for the insights from the C Suite; looks like the predominant theme is the war for talent- attract, retain and engage. Employee engagement strategies are listed in many of the comments above: training, morale, development, performance… I am grateful you bring critical issues like this to your readers’ awareness.

The next ten years are going to be exciting, challenging and will test CEO’s like never before. Retiring boomers, developing Gen X’ers for leadership roles and integrating social responsibility into the mission while making a profit. All this and more.

Great post and love the website’s new look,

Craig

Fantastic post, Lisa! There are many challenges for leadership today – and for their employees. This is an enlightening post, and this conversation needs to happen at every level.

@HeatherEColeman

Investing in training is so important to me. I worked for Coopers & Lybrand, now PricewaterhouseCoopers, for many years. They spent so much in getting me trained. It makes a world of difference in who I am today. I always say that perhaps I’ll never work in another place like that again. Two reasons are the amount of training I received and the freedom they gave me to manage there.

Investment in people and talent development fall into the same thing as I just stated. I think world class organizations train and develop their people. It sets them apart and outs them ahead.

Empowerment follows one comment above about Coopers & Lybrand giving me the freedom to manage. It was frightening at first but did I ever grow up fast when I had to manage people. Supposedly some of the biggest and most stressful events that ever happen in your life are marrige,
divorce, buying a house, and a death in the family. I’d add the day you start managing people your life and responsibilities completely change.

Cultural differences are a tpic that’s relevant to me. For many years, I ran a financial software support group where the work was intense and very pressured. My group was so diverse that it was unbelievable. That was because to survive and thrive, I had to pick the very best people. I didn’t care what their backgrounds were as long as they were the best people. But, as if I was not demanding enough, they also had to have the quality of self awareness of others. This is what allows a group of diverse people to respect others and work fluidly.

Problem finding talent that can write well is meaningful to me. I was a poor writer when I started and became much better with practice. It is not enough to be good technically but you have to communicate to others what you have done. It’s the same with management skills and presentation skills. I used to tell my people that they should come with me to the corner office to show management great things they had done instead of me presenting their work to management. Many had a fear of doing that but they didn’t realize that management wanted to see them. Writing and presentation skills are so important in business.

Hi Lisa,

Saw you post retweeted and ,thought to pass-by to take a look.

I am not yet CEO of any company but someday I will be one. My goal in life is to be a CEO of my own company, lead 500 people and build a successful business empire.

The life of a CEO is facing challenges and break downs everyday.

I’d like to share a recent breakdown I had and I would want to share it in detail but it will take long.

To be brief, I failed in business, owe 2,+++ dollars and I don’t have work which means I’m completely broke. This setback made me fall apart but realized that my goal is to be CEO.which means facing challenges and breakdowns should be a common feat for me. This way of thinking made me realized how small and petty my situation right now. Real CEO’s face bigger and more daunting problems that I have right now, Why would I be any different from them?

Thank you very much for the very reflective post.

Stay Awesome!

Armand Polanski

There isn’t anything on the list that isn’t DIRECTLY about people . . . nor should there be. The older I get, the more I realize that there isn’t really anything else. It’s the only sustainable competitive advantage (provided you can figure out how to build it and how to sustain it, that is).

Anthony

I think the insights here are right on! Remember when the Personnel Department was just that? I was one of the first back in 1988 to earn an advanced degree in what is now “Human Resources Management.” No longer a so called dumping ground for those who could not make it in Sales or Marketing, no? Regardless, I have touched on a side bar stemming from your post which I have blogged about over at billhorniak.blogspot.com I sincerely think all of you might enjoy? I look forward, and again thank you Lisa for the knowledge… 🙂

Money and people will forever been issues in running a business. Some say time but if focus is spent ON the business and ON the people, time will become less of an issue. Leadership takes finesse and in my humble opinion 70-80% of your time should be working with your people. But with the ever increasing pressure on the bottom line, cost cutting and pushing harder seem to be the popular tactics.

if you focus your efforts on your people – for real, and mean it – your bottom line will grow. Patience is scarce but find it whenever and wherever possible. Every person in the enterprise wants to be fulfilled, have purpose, be satisfied with good work and contribute. If the selected few in the c-suite set agenda and objectives while they expect the “others” to carry it out, these issues will continue to be on the list.

The crucial part of ROI is Investment. Invest in your people, give them time with you and time to learn and grow and do better work. Appreciate them, for real, and you will see revenue grow. Continue to hide and hope and cost cutting may continue to appear to be your only option.

Hi Lisa,

Good information to share. It all comes down to people – how do you recruit, train, inspire, reward and get the best performance and creativity out of people? You can discuss and question all you want. But if you don’t start talking to your managers and employees, one-to-one, you’ll never get results.

Too many people who could be mentors and are the decision makers, are too busy managing up and out to simply turn around and face your direct reports, and their front line workers, to do the real “work” of conversation and action with employees.

So my advice to CEOs – take time every day or week to walk around and talk to your employees – have specific open office hours and let any employee just drop by and chat, make sure your senior managers do the same, and then discuss the results at least once each month. You’ll see a dramatic change in engagement throughout the company.