Help your managers think like your CEO

Part 1 - The wide angle lens.

What if you could help your mid-level managers think like your CEO? Understand your business and take decisions looking at the whole board? What would this do to their effectiveness, to their motivation and promote-ability? What could this do for your company’s growth and profitability?

This is a question we have answered for many of our clients over the years – and one we will attempt to answer for you here. Let’s start with some key benefits:

1. Drive innovation and creativity - Managers across departments work more collaboratively to identify ways to drive customer value, reduce wastage etc.
2. Take faster and more effective decisions, supported by wider perspective across departments
3. Be acutely aware of the impact of their decisions on the company’s goals and finances

Adding a little width to their already significant depth can make your managers vastly more effective.

The next step is identifying what it is that differentiates your CEO’s thought process from that of your middle management. Your managers are specialists in vital functions, are good at their jobs and can handle their people effectively. In other words, they have significant depth in their own function. Your CEO’s wide responsibilities, on the other hand, make him acutely connected to the big picture – and his ‘big decisions’ are smarter than your managers’. Adding a little width to their already significant depth can thus make your managers vastly more effective.

But what does ‘width’ mean here? From our workshops, we have identified two major aspects – which middle managers need to know about other functions

1. The core purpose of each department, how each part contributes to the whole – or what value each function adds to the final product/service the company offers to its customers.
2. How decisions taken by one manager affects another’s department, and vice versa. In other words, how he/she can work collaboratively with peers from other functions.

None of these require in-depth knowledge of other functions, but rather a wide understanding of basic issues within each

Notice how – just like your CEO’s perspective – these do not require in-depth knowledge of other functions, but rather a wide understanding of key issues within each.

Our simulation-based workshops, designed separately for mid and senior management, equip your managers to think like your CEO. One of our participants summed it up quite succinctly -  “A  great workshop for all middle managers who aspire to take higher role and responsibility in future.” (Meenakshi Munshi, VP, Kotak mahindra).

Do contact us to find out how we can help your company.