What does good corporate management mean under the sign of the current financial and economic crisis?
Johannes von Schmettow, head of Egon Zehnder International Germany, looked into this question in an interview with the
Handelsblatt. Even if many top executives have had to analyze “the state of the company dispassionately and unsparingly in a very short amount of time” and to introduce tough measures to some extent, it still holds good that management cannot be limited to “just the bare survival of the company - with fewer products, fewer employees and fewer markets.” Strong management personalities, in fact, act “independently of economic activity,” and what matters now more than ever is “intensifying exchange and cooperation in top management ... The complexity of the world economy has grown to such an extent that increasing productivity is no longer generated by linear improvement, but rather by intelligent networking. That's why a corporate executive of today must be able above all to form and moderate teams - teams that, taken together, are better and stronger than the boss himself.” In answer to the question as to whether that wasn't wishful thinking, Schmettow replied: “Not at all. We are seeing a clear trend of increasing attention being turned toward the potentials of teams. In the process, the variety of diverse talents, internal and external resilience, and networking with other divisions of the organization, among other things, are undergoing a detailed examination.” In this context, diversity may not be reduced to gender or skin color, but stands rather for different “experiences in business, in industries and in markets as well as different temperaments ... to be diverse means in essence to set very high standards for the ability of teams.”
With regard to members of supervisory boards, Schmettow said that these were “the sparring partners” of the CEOs and should by no means be “a type of senior CEO.” Members of supervisory boards are “the stakeholders of the shareholders.”
