CEOs, consider this your wake-up call

CEOs, consider this your wake up call (Joseph Baladi, Today).

Let me quote the first three paragraphs of the article:
“INCREASINGLY, companies in China and some Asian countries are exhibiting leadership that demonstrates an understanding of two critical things: The importance of developing sustainable relationships with customers through solid brands and branding, and the recognition that fundamental shifts and changes are taking place in the business landscape.

They recognise that everything is fluid, right down to business models.

But the opposite is true of Singapore chief executive officers (CEOs) who badly need a wake-up call. I have met close to a hundred CEOs of Singaporean companies over the past four years and have dealt with companies of all sizes from small and medium enterprises to multi-national corporations.

Most of the branding efforts of many Singaporean companies end up being either too little or irrelevant. They skirt key issues or avoid the hard ones. Yet, executives and CEOs walk away believing that they have “checked” that box, and can move on to something else.

I thought that this is a good wake up call for some managers or CEOs who still behave as if they are army officers in the camp. In the real world, you cannot point a gun to your executive and make the person to run through the hills and fight a battle for you. The team is flat, and don’t keep thinking that you are the boss and the other person’s the worker and this kind of relationship does not allow translation of vision to the people. Leveraging on brand and passing of information among people helps a lot. Certainly, with some of my recent experiences, it’s good to know that there are people who think like that too.