In modern corporate management, the work, role, and responsibilities of the chief executive officer (CEO) or any other person in a similar capacity are not only difficult and complicated, difficult to understand from different perspectives. In his article “What only the CEO can do”, Lafley, the former Proctor, and Gamble CEO have highlighted the difficult and unique tasks that corporate CEOs perform to ensure that their companies achieve their goals.
In particular, the former CEO reveals some unique aspects of a CEO’s work that other people fail to see. Similarly, the Bloomberg documentary film “Bloomberg game changers Mark Zuckerberg” reveals the unique aspects and roles of effective corporate leaders in the modern business environment. Arguably, the two sources indicate that modern corporate leaders such as the CEOs have the unique responsibility of solving the conflict between the external and the internal business environments through coordination of corporate activities.
Citing his own experience, Lafley describes the problems that CEOs experience in their capacities because the employees, customers, shareholders, and society, in general, expect them to jump into an organization during difficult times and provide solutions that will solve the problems within the shortest time possible. Citing the article “The American CEO” by the late Peter Ducker, Lafley states that society thinks that a CEO is a coach or infielder with a capacity to make the right and ultimate solutions to any problem facing a company.
However, the actual work of a CEO, as stated by Ducker in his article, is to act as the link between the inside part of the organization and the outside society, which is defined by the economy, customers, technology, and markets. According to this definition, the inside environment of the organization is defined by the costs while the results are part of the external part of the environment. Therefore, the CEO is different from the other individuals in an organization. The writer says that other people in an organization have a narrow and unidirectional focus. They focus on either the inside or outside environment of the organization.
Bloomberg’s documentary film attempts to use the story of Mark Zuckerberg, the young American entrepreneur and founder of Facebook, the world’s leading social site. It traces his history from the time he was at Harvard to the present. It highlights various challenges and roles he has played to achieve his dreams. It presents various interviews with various individuals such as Yuri Milner, Michael Wolf, and David Kirkpatrick. Also, it focuses on the story of Zuckerberg’s rivals such as Tyler Winlevoss and Davya Narendra, who claim to be the original owner of the Facebook idea.
From these interviews, it is evident that Zuckerberg presents the characteristics of a modern CEO. The characteristics he presents concur with the roles that Ducker and Lafley cite in their description of a CEO. Zuckerberg had both external and internal focus when he launched Facebook based on a classwork idea. While other students were focused on achieving grades out of their projects to graduate, Zuckerberg realized that there was an opportunity to make the idea work in the real world. Also, Zuckerbeg turned a simple class object into a corporate initiative, which shows his ability to focus on the external environment.
He considered that people wanted to socialize without the need for physical contact. He also considered that the American society was composed of a large population of enthusiasts of technology. He realized that these aspects were the external environments with the capacity to attract profits.