riends with the president.It used to be that a company was in one kind of business and stayed in it. Today, companies are much more likely to shift between businesses. This dynamic is at work in many of the mergers and acquisitions that have become commonplace. A manufacturer may buy a financial service provider. All of the sudden, it's in a different business, and running that business requires a different set of skills. The overall pace of change in business is accelerating, which puts pressure on companies to re-invent themselves. Probably the toughest task for the president in effecting change is mobilizing people throughout the organization to the new competitive environment. The president must possess extraordinary skills, with leadership, integrity, and the ability to motivate being crucially important; this individual is intimately involved when a company restructures or re-engineers, develops or implements strategy or merges business. The president may be forced into resolving conflicts when marketing has difficulty working with operations, when cross-functional teams don't work well, or when senior executives complain, "We don't seem to be able to execute effectively." But these problems are often systemic problems with no ready answer, and yet the president is expected to magically come up with a brilliant solution.Mobilizing an organization to adapt its behaviors in order to thrive in a new business environment is critical. Without such change, any company today would falter. Indeed, getting people to change is the mark of leadership in a competitive world. Yet for most senior executives, providing leadership and not just authoritative expertise is extremely difficult, because: Executives reach their position of authority by virtue of their competence in taking responsibility and solving problems. However, when a company faces systemic problems, the responsibility for problem solving must shift its people. Solut...
