Nine More Ways to Reduce the CEO's Power of Authority

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22268
• Author: Alan Vercio
• Published date: 01 May 2017
• Date: 01 May 2017

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© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI 10.1002/jcaf.22268

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Nine More Ways to Reduce the

CEO’s Power of Authority

Alan Vercio

INTRODUCTION

CEOs working with an

ineffective board of direc-

tors and management passing

information they believe the

CEO wants to hear instead

of what the CEO needs to

hear are two ways to limit the

CEO’s ability to execute the

business strategy. This article

identifies nine more ways to

limit the CEO’s ability to exe-

cute the business strategy. Each

of the nine ways will include

examples of how it happens

and mitigation opportunities.

FOUNDATION CONCEPTS

Following are foundational

concepts that will provide the

reader a baseline for several of

the “nine ways.”

Operating Versus Discretionary

Resources and Operating

Plan Versus Opportunities

(Life-Cycle) Plan

… a great many com-

panies increasingly

separate the budget

into two parts. One is

the operating budget,

which deals with all the

things that are already

being done. The other

part is sometimes called

the opportunities bud-

get; it deals with the

new things that might

be done, with products,

markets, activities, pro-

grams that represent

either something genu-

inely new or a new way

of doing old work.

In analyzing the

operational budget, the

manager asks: “What

is the minimum that

needs to be done in

this area to prevent

damage? How much

effort and how many

resources have to be

put into this activ-

ity to keep it going?

What is the lowest cost

to obtain adequate

results?” (or “what will

I have to cut out of my

operations to meet pro-

ductivity demands and

budget cuts?”)

With respect

to the opportuni-

ties budget, the first

question is always: Is

this the right oppor-

tunity? And if the

answer is yes, then

the next question

becomes: What is the

optimum, in terms of

resources and money,

this opportunity can

absorb at the present

level. (Drucker, 1973)

Vertical Versus Horizontal

Work

The functional (vertical)

organization structure is based

on technical skills. The segrega-

tion of technical skills begins

in education and is supported

with professional organizations.

While most of the organi-

zation’s people (90%?) reside

and work in the vertical orga-

nization structure, there is a

set of skills that have horizon-

tal work responsibility. Hori-

zontal work is accomplished

by linking functional work

together to form an end-to-end

(E2E) workflow. This is impor-

tant because the customer/

patient experience is deter-

mined by the horizontal flow of

work and rarely one functional

department.