What are the basic conditions for a professional "CEO"?

A professional CEO should also have the following qualities:

1. Extraordinary communication skills

The biggest difference between CEO and other professions is that CEO is a manager. Like all managers, the tasks and goals that CEO wants to accomplish are obtained by borrowing other people's hands and brains. Almost all professions can go it alone, except managers. Humans are thinking primates. If you want to organize a group of primates efficiently, you can't just have rights. Therefore, a CEO must have extraordinary communication skills in order to successfully persuade the board of directors to support his work, to make his subordinates willing to go through fire and water for him, and to win the cooperation of the government and customers with his company. It is the interaction between the hands and brains of all these business participants that determines the success or failure of a CEO.

When I talk about communication skills, I don't mean that a CEO should have eloquent language skills like an orator. On the contrary, many excellent CEOs I have met are people who speak slowly and do things quickly. The most important means for CEO to communicate with people is action, not words. A medal award, a personnel appointment and dismissal, a new sales policy, the handling of an urgent problem, and even a look will have a communication effect that words can't achieve. Please remember that communication must be two-way, and you can't communicate with others only when you want to communicate. If you let a branch manager who reported an emergency to you without an appointment wait outside the door for 30 minutes, you are clearly sending a message that you despise him and his company.

Effective communication is based on listening first: if you can't understand each other's meaning and problems, how can you communicate with him? This is especially important for the CEO, because others will let you speak first and will not interrupt you easily. People are born with a desire to express themselves. If the CEO really thinks that others like to listen to your long speech, it is all wet. You can't solve the problems in other people's heads, and it's no use talking too much. I still clearly remember that10.5 hours on a whim when I held an annual budget meeting with the senior management of China Resources Beer Company in 1995 to discuss beer strategy. But when I was thirsty and stopped, I was full of expectations for a warm response. Unexpectedly, all the participants were silent. I can't help it. I named one of them to speak. He said, "Manager Huang, we all agree with you. However, what puzzles us most now is that we don't know whether to seize market share or improve profit margin? " I suddenly lost my breath, and 1 half an hour of "communication" was all in vain. So, I fell into the kind of distress that has been with me since I became CEO-why can I understand my subordinates so little?

I began to classify my subordinates in my mind. One is that they can understand me, belong to people with "understanding" and can be entrusted with heavy responsibilities; The other kind, people who don't understand me and don't "understand", will be replaced if there is a suitable candidate. I began to look for potential senior managers on a large scale. In the last month, I interviewed 56 candidates. Later, I suddenly realized that a manager who didn't know me before I replaced him led a company that everyone didn't like, and actually made achievements that surprised all his peers. He is currently the general manager of China Resources Beer Group, the second largest beer group in China. On the contrary, those who can understand me don't always perform well. So, I finally understand: others don't understand my words, first of all, because I don't understand their "words."

From then on, I began to consciously train my "listening" ability. Not only that, whether a person can "listen" has become one of the necessary criteria for me to choose CEO in the future. No matter how capable a person is, if he can't actively "listen" to others, he can't understand others' problems quickly, and he can't be a good CEO.

4. Self-learning and self-reflection ability

A good CEO should first be an expert in one or several industries. Because management is always specific. No matter what their professional background is, you will often find that half of them are accountants, half are lawyers, half are engineers and even half are sales experts. People who have never been a CEO often say, "You have learned, what do you need professionals for?" Don't you know that professionals can't make decisions instead of CEO? If you don't have certain professional knowledge, how can professionals explain their decision-making problems to you? How can you help others make decisions if you don't understand their problems? For example, in the annual financial report, is an unclear large expense invested this year or next year? At this time, CFO can't make decisions for you. Someone said half jokingly, "CEO is not necessarily a good student at school;" But when I started working, I became the most diligent student. "Don't you know, this is actually the professional requirement of the CEO.

Different from other professions, CEO can't learn the ability to deal with these major problems that affect the fate of enterprises and CEO himself in school and books. This is not only because it is impossible to encounter these problems without being in the position of CEO, but also because these problems are different in different stages of every enterprise and enterprise. Therefore, a successful CEO must be a person with strong introspection ability. He needs to constantly reflect on these issues and find out the most suitable management methods for his own enterprise.

Unfortunately, some CEOs changed themselves on the way to becoming CEO. Once he took the position of CEO, he began to be self-righteous, refused to learn, and was lazy to reflect. Thus, the decline of the enterprise began. Therefore, when choosing a CEO, don't be confused by their past success. A successful surgeon can have a trail to follow; A successful CEO may not guarantee his brilliant tomorrow.

He is a master of multiple choice questions.

If I had to describe the role of CEO in one sentence, I would say that CEO is specialized in making decisions. Most decisions of enterprises are decisions of uncertain factors, because no one can predict the future. After exhausting all the experts' opinions, once the CEO decides to adopt Plan A, he actually agrees with Plan A's judgment on future uncertainty. The misjudgment is not the responsibility of the experts, but the responsibility of the CEO, because the experts are invited by the CEO. An expert who judges 10 times and can hit 6 times is a super expert. But a misjudgment may ruin the future of an enterprise, so the position of CEO needs strong psychological endurance.

Most decisions faced by CEO are unconventional, because once they are implemented, they can be delegated to subordinates. In the face of new decision-making problems, CEO must study and study; But when you study and research, the operation of the enterprise can't stop. So, from the moment this question reaches your hands, the countdown begins.

Moreover, some business problems are like unsolvable problems in higher mathematics-the answer is unsolvable. For example, in the face of a wrong investment project, the correct business decision should be stopped immediately, and a strong man will break his arm. But shareholders and the board of directors can't accept this reality. They not only want you to continue to operate, but also have unrealistic hopes. What would you do? Some people may say, "You should communicate well with shareholders and the board of directors." However, some business problems cannot be communicated. Everyone who does business knows that losing less means earning more, but few people are calm in the face of losing money.

I believe that everyone who has been a CEO has the experience that there are often several unresolved or unsolved problems in his mind. When these problems are many, your psychological pressure will be great. When a CEO resigned from me, he said that the job was too stressful to concentrate on sex. So, if you don't have a strong heart, I advise you never to be a CEO.

As a professional decision-maker, CEO must also have a rigorous logical mind. Enterprises are high-speed machines in a changing environment, and any component problems need to be solved immediately. But every part of this machine is not a standard part, so you can't find the same one from the spare parts library and change it immediately. Therefore, you must choose a component with similar functions to replace it in the shortest time under changing and uncertain circumstances. This requires your judgment. Which part is more suitable? Most business decisions are not clear. On the contrary, they are often the choice of the lesser of two evils or the heavier of two benefits. Just like a candidate who often takes multiple-choice exams, the CEO constantly chooses the most correct answer among plausible answers.

If you don't have a strong choice, the attractive career of CEO must be a kind of torture for you. I have met people with high academic qualifications. They are very sophisticated in analyzing problems. However, once faced with decision-making, they become very painful, because they dare not accept a scheme with uncertain risks. So, when interviewing CEO, one question I want to ask is: "What was the hardest decision you made in your business career?"

4. Knife players with operational ability

I once made a bet that if a good CEO was thrown into the kitchen to wash dishes, he could quickly find a fast, clean and water-saving way to wash dishes.

Because the CEO must be a person with strong planning ability and need to accomplish several things at the same time. The CEO is different from the chairman. He is in charge of daily operation. Because you can't ask employees to stop what they are doing and wait for you to make a decision. The CEO's delay in decision-making is actually a decision to stay put or continue to implement the current policy. In that internet bubble wave, many enterprises were involved. However, aren't those enterprises that make mistakes quickly and correct them quickly, with less losses? Since the CEO is a candidate who has to answer multiple-choice questions in a limited time, hesitation can forgive recklessness. Because you don't forgive a CEO's recklessness, you actually kill his decisiveness. This is a typical dilemma often encountered in enterprise management-you must choose between decisiveness and prudence or recklessness and indecision, and you can't simply avoid recklessness or indecision.

An unorganized, narrow-minded and indecisive person cannot direct an efficient enterprise. This efficient ability to do things is accumulated and trained bit by bit in daily life and work. A good CEO must work hard step by step from the grassroots level. Therefore, when I choose a CEO, I attach great importance to whether the candidates have the ability to deal with specific problems and experience in managing independent institutions, because the efficient operation ability that CEOs need is more important and more rare than their industry experience.