July 31, 2006	Monday	Rajab 4, 1427

STUDY any top chief executive officer (CEO) anywhere and it will be so obvious, so quickly, that they are all busy thinking, reflecting and challenging the other best minds on ideas that may have direct or indirect influence on their organisations in the coming years.

They thrive on delegation and have a perfectly relaxed disposition about it. As chiefs, they have a strong understanding of the art of execution and they practice this to perfection to manage the efficiency of that office. This is what CEO’s are for.

Let’s look at CEOs in Pakistan, where almost all work tirelessly around the clock and almost seven days. Chief executives not only struggle to connect with their teams but also have strange habits and protocols.

Being overly-busy is a symbol of status. Same goes for being late or being chased by a small herd of junior staff who constantly exhaust themselves coordinating with the CEO over trivial details plus endless cell phone calls of minuscule value.

A tired CEO run around like a front line secretary on a switch board or like a staff at a dispatch desk. Exhausted and under great pressure, they have hardly any time to relax, never mind taking a full day off for thinking on a golf course, or a relaxed intellectual exercise extending half a day.

But then again, there are no CEOs in Pakistan of the type found in the industrially developed countries. On the other hand, multinational organisations primarily exist for the best interests of their own agenda, a, characteristics of most developing economies. Most of them have a very colonial style of operations that is to follow the headquarters’ and not to focus the real arena to incubate any serious innovative revolutions.

Today, this is a matter of foresight of local entrepreneurial CEOs, who have laid the foundations of the first phase of building large, very successful huge local industries and have proven their goals. Bravo, well done. Now how do you move to phase two for regional and global presence and turbo charge like other developing countries?

Firstly, like all other developing and fast-moving economies, Pakistan is beginning to see the emergence of the second generation younger CEOs. This certainly opens the doors to see what constitutes a stronger and highly charged CEO.

At any cost, most CEOs refuse to micro-manage and devote their time to finding new and innovative ways for the progress of their organisation. Their thinking time is the incubator of the progressive change and rapid growth they so cherish.

Strategic thinking by CEO’s is a matter of centrality on its own, compared to the relatively trivial management of logistics such as telephone management; the think tanks and germination of leadership by a CEO is something that cannot be easily replaced.

Modern CEOs are fit to trod, early risers to the challenge, regular exercise and health buffs, champion of time management and enforcers of such ideas throughout their organisation. Punctuality and time lines are rewarded and their value of time is measured in direct relation to bottom lines.

Old concepts of selling cheap commodities are being replaced by high-value-added custom branded values at highest mark up and great profitability. The current times are teaching some tough lessons to the naive and hard working CEOs who all along relied on great production and cheap prices as their strategic edge. No more. Today, only corporate image and brand savvy CEOs can really play the growth game.

The second generation CEOs must place an extraordinary value to building processes for creating the right images and corporate identities so that it can provide the right culture and incubate some successful brands. Collectively speaking, the image quality of any organisation can determine its strategic alignment within the corporate game, and will serve as an indication of where this organisation will head towards the future.

For a new CEO, it is all about people and team building. Any organisation that ignores providing continuous modern training with cutting- edge ideas, backed by world-class standard is basically going nowhere.

Modern CEOs are aware of this and invest heavily in all aspects of training to ensure better teams and to earn better loyalty among staff members. A skilled CEO will effectively take advantage of what human resources has to offer by ensuring that their respective teams are in optimal shape, physically and mentally.

The power of e-commerce is hardly tapped by most organisations. Upcoming CEOs are not only cyber-savvy but realize the value of using this entire ecommerce infrastructure out there so freely available. E-commerce have given CEO’s throughout the world, entirely new mediums to connect to others, and therefore, their branding and imaging is much more visible, compared to pre-Internet era where famous logos only appeared in magazines and on billboards.

The ultimate power of holding that office is to lead the organisation and the teams to a fine point in current time where it acquires a position of distinct image and corporate leadership. An organisation reaches this potential when its image becomes unmistakable, acting as a symbol of successful strategic thinking and marketing.

There is a lot riding on the current CEOs of Pakistan. Firstly, they have to turn-around exportability in a big way, both in volume and profitability, increase the number of products and services and most importantly fix the overall disconnected images of their corporations including the country.

The ‘soft image’ of Pakistan , currently a soft spoken message without any teeth. Only the business leaders, young and old combined with other institutions will have to lead a new revolution. Other countries are doing it so smoothly and Pakistan is no exception.

The serious race among emerging economies is on and the winners and losers are being measured at the end of every single day. Stock markets tell some of the money stories while others of creating demands are told by customers rushing to buy the best products and services marketed under the best brands and best corporate image.

CEOs are the only real driver of this race, for that reason they are so revered in the West and now the same must emerge in the South Asian corridor. The present CEO and his successors, both must figure out the best way to stay afloat and certainly win their races.