With all the changes that have occurred in the business landscape over the past decade, it's becoming ever more difficult for CEOs and COOs to devote time and energy to executing strategy within their company's. As a result, CEOs are appointing CSOs for their organization. A Chief Strategy Officer is "an executive who is responsible for assisting the CEO with creating, communicating, executing and sustaining strategic initiatives within a company." The CSO position is becoming popular amongst many large multinational Fortune 500 companies, including Panasonic, Accenture, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and Global Healthcare Resource.
1. Deeply Trusted by the CEO - Gaining and keeping trust takes time. Gary has been the both founder and president of companies for his entire career and has walked in their shoes.
2. Star Players - Gary has achieved impressive results starting early in his career. He has been involved in pioneering start-ups as well as running a medical manufacturing company for 18 years. He has had experience as both an entrepreneur and seasoned business owner.
3. Jacks of all Trades - Because Gary has founded five businesses he's been there since the beginning in each of them. He has worn both the CEO hat and the Janitor's hat and every other hat in between.
4. Comfortable with Ambiguity - Because Gary has pioneered new business concepts, he is very comfortable in embracing an uncertain future. He's learned that actions don't always pay off right away and that his roles have had to evolve rapidly as circumstances dictated.
5. Influencers - Gary has always scored very high on assessments in this area. He's a passionate leader who believes the "Golden Rule" not only makes good moral sense, but it makes good business sense too. He believes the highest achievement a leader can obtain is to win the "trust and respect" of those he leads.
6. Multitasking Masters - As a business owner, Gary has always been responsible for multiple business functions and activities. He's had to see the "big picture" and understand how all the pieces fit together. He is very comfortable in these situations.
7. Doers - Gary understands that both strategy and execution are important. However, he strongly believes that a mediocre strategic plan executed well is better than an excellent strategy executed in a mediocre way. This is an important point because most organizations (at least 83% of them) fail to implement their strategic plans each year. They fail because of poor execution.
8. Great Communicators - Gary excels in this area. He has been a professional speaker for over 30 years. Not only that, he has been teaching professional speaking skills to senior executives and college students for over 13 years. Gary understands "that nothing is so simple that is cannot be misunderstood."
9. Students of Business Education - The topic of implementing strategy is not new. However, there's much more education and consultant support on the strategy side. Most of the education on the execution side is on the "why" and "what" of it. There's been little education on the "how" of it. Gary has helped to change that. For the past 20 years he's been a dedicated student of business education. He's read over 175 business books. He has written over 28 book reports (Gary's Cliff Notes) and has over 65 published book reviews.
10. Strategy Execution Management System Experts - Gary is one of the few experts in strategy execution management systems. He uses The Keyne Method system which is designed to clarify, deploy and achieve an organization's initiatives. Gary believes that without a system you're playing Russian roulette with the results. He has chosen The Keyne Method because he believes it's the best strategy-execution management system in existence.
