Like many other people, I often hear that Elon Musk is an exceptional CEO. I didn’t know why he was good. In courses for CEOs, the main tasks of CEOs are usually laid out like this:
- Attracting key clients.
- Hiring key people.
- Raising capital.
If you look through the prism of such tasks, Elon copes with them perfectly (at least in appearance). Anyway, this article is not about Elon. The point is that it’s useful to know these tasks.
For example, there is talk about opening a subsidiary abroad. You can +/- predict the course of events, or at least learn a lot about your company when you hear about the results of creating this subsidiary.
Let’s say that a subsidiary company was opened and a new CEO appeared there. What will happen next? You go to the Linkedin profile of this CEO. Let it say that he has never been involved in what your company does. That means the owners of the parent company are not interested in key clients similar to those in your country. It is logical that key clients in a new country should be looked for by a person who understands what you do? Therefore, there are no options; you will now have completely new areas of activity. You have always made microprocessors, and now you will also make software for drawing diagrams, for example.
Let’s say that in the same time you are fed up with microprocessors, and the diagrams are ok. Does it make sense to try to jump into a new line of business while it is still in its infancy? The answer depends on how much time the owners of the parent company spent in the new country. If they went there often and for a long time, they put their skin in the new company, which means everything will be fine there. If they weren’t there, then you have nothing to do there, this is obviously a failed enterprise, no matter how much it is advertised.
So it’s not very difficult to read the thoughts of the CEO (and at the same time the fate of the company for the next year or two). You just need to keep your eyes open to his tasks.
