CEOs today face a host of unprecedented challenges in leading their organisations to success. Against the severe headwinds brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying economic fallout, 58.3% of Fortune 500 CEOs believed that pre-pandemic levels of economic activity would only return in 2022. The economic impacts already felt could be amplified by further waves of infection, potentially deepening the decline in global economic output and employment.
In coping with this “new normal”, CEOs have to reimagine the future and reinvent their businesses. Three challenges stand out.
1. Strategy and innovation
Strategy maps the organisation's choices and its path to success. Innovation is what sustains that success over the long term — without it, even a winning position erodes.
2. Executional excellence
Winning strategies must be translated into reality. There is a strong argument that execution matters even more than strategy: a good strategy poorly executed is indistinguishable from a bad one.
3. The talent war
Competition to secure the best talent is intensifying worldwide, and the organisations that win it are the ones that can execute.
These challenges are not new, but they have been amplified by the pandemic and the Fourth Industrial Revolution — alongside geopolitical tension, anti-globalisation, protectionism and trade barriers.
Mindset shifts within the workforce add a further layer of complexity. Organisations must now manage perspectives spanning Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials and Generation Z, and harness these differing viewpoints into a single effective team. The Organisation Performance Index™ was developed to give leaders a measurable view of exactly where, within these three areas, intervention is needed.