As an Editor for a niche industry, one of the things I like to do is keep my eye on what the mainstream business world is talking about. I find it is a great way to stay informed and also to cultivate ideas for gases and welding articles. Well today I stumbled upon an article that I found very interesting.
What CEOs really Want is the name of the article and Frank Kern wrote it for BusinessWeek. It touches on the one quality that American CEOs most commonly identified as important in a prospective job candidate. Surpriingly, it wasn’t work ethic, knowledge, assertiveness or people skills. It was creativity.
Here’s an excerpt from the article, which can be found here.
“There is compelling new evidence that CEOs’ priorities in this area are changing in important ways. According to a new survey of 1,500 chief executives conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value (NYSE: IBM – News), CEOs identify “creativity” as the most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future.
Coming out of the worst economic downturn in their professional lifetimes, when managerial discipline and rigor ruled the day, this indicates a remarkable shift in attitude. It is consistent with the study’s other major finding: Global complexity is the foremost issue confronting these CEOs and their enterprises. The chief executives see a large gap between the level of complexity coming at them and their confidence that their enterprises are equipped to deal with it.”
So does that carry over to gases and welding? I would say it does. Not only do customers demand new, creative solutions, but you have to be creative to find new customers as well. What do all of you think? How important is creativity in your industry?
Let me know!