Meeting Ram Charan

At the launch of Telstra’s Next IP, I had the privilege of meeting Ram Charan. Now I have quoted him many times, in fact in the little book of answers. Ram’s quote heads up one of the chapters.

“The motto of successful CEOs: People first, strategy second.”

Ram has written a new book simply called
“Know – How” the 8 skills that separate people who perform from those who don’t. Click on the image below for details.

Ram spoke succinctly about leadership and the qualities of leaders. He said that much of his learnings came from being mentored in the late 1950s here in Australia. It was almost as if he spoke in ‘quotes’. I was left with the impression of a humble man, truly fascinated about organisations and creating communities.

His book covers eight fundamental skills needed for success in the twenty-first century:

• Positioning (and when necessary, repositioning) a business by zeroing in on the central idea that meets customer needs and makes money
• Connecting the dots by pinpointing patterns of external change ahead of others
• Shaping the way people work together by leading the social system of your business
• Judging people by getting to the truth of a person
• Moulding high-energy, high-powered, high-ego people into a working team of leaders in which they equal more than the sum of their parts
• Knowing the destination where you want to take your business by developing goals that balance what the business can become with what it can realistically achieve
• Setting laser-sharp priorities that become the road map for meeting your goals
• Dealing creatively and positively with societal pressures that go beyond the economic value creation activities of your business

Leadership and the difference to management fascinate me. Both are needed in a successful organisation…but in what proportions?