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How to resolve AdBlock issue? Business is changing (as always) – but can you handle the pace?
By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>
THE PROBLEMS and challenges facing today’s CEOs have changed.
Most notably, it’s the pace of change.
Jarrod McGrath, CEO of Smart WFM believes the big issue now is the rate of change. It’s never been seen before and surviving it is the biggest challenge, he said.
“If you look back 10 years ago, it was very much you have your financial responsibilities, you’ve got your people responsibilities, you’ve got your process, your operations,” Mr McGrath told Talking Business. 
“Today the fundamentals are the same but the rate of change is happening at such a significant pace that people are wanting instant feedback, instant response, you’ve got all sorts of technology coming at a million miles an hour.”
AI a troublesome accelerator?
Mr McGrath said artificial intelligence was a perfect example of this.
He said CEOs now need to have an “incredible” team of people around them. The team and the organisation need to be investing enough to make sure it can take on all the change that is coming at them.
He said CEOs had to make sure they had the rhythm of AI fitting their particular company and sector.
“Some organisations are on the cutting edge and they need to be on the cutting edge of where AI is going,” Mr McGrath said.
“But if you’re an organisation that hasn’t traditionally come from a technological background or that digitally flavoured way of operating, then as a CEO and an organisation, you’ve got to get yourself prepared first because you can’t just come and take the AI on without having a really good understanding of how it’s going to fit into operating rhythm and cadence.”
He said companies need people with competencies like problem solving, digital literacy, project management and emotional quotient (EQ) skills to deal with AI. Everything that goes using AI needs human vetting.
“These days there’s a set of competencies that organisations need to have to take on AI,” Mr McGrath said.
“A lot of organisations are really good at bringing these skills and competencies in, or they have them already, but there’s a lot of organisations that are really struggling with this because they haven’t been founded on what I call digital muscle.
“So it’s the organisations that are able to adapt and develop these competencies that are going to do well from AI.”
High CEO turnover is having a ‘short-sighted’ impact
Mr McGrath said one of the big problems facing companies – and CEOs – these days is the high turnover of CEOs. They don’t usually last more than five years.
McGrath said keeping a CEO in the same position for longer would improve Australia’s productivity.
“Often what happens, from my observations with CEOs, is that the CEO will join an organisation on a two-or-three year tenure to drive a certain outcome for the organisation and for the next two or three years it’s a certain outcome.
“I really wonder whether this turnover of CEOs in organisations stifles productivity.
“I think organisations would become more systemic in the way that they think and the way they develop their plans. To really drive productivity into organisations these days, it’s a mix of the old three things of people, process and technology,” Mr McGrath said.
“But these days, to really get productivity improvement, those areas need to be so well integrated, working together.
“And if a short-term objective of a CEO is to drive bottom line profit, are you losing sight of some of these longer term activities that need to take place?
“Because a lot of organisations have systems, processes and technology that are very old and built on old-skilled thinking – and these (business development activities) are multi-year programs of improvement to get these right. And, from the centre of that, stems the productivity improvement.”
Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness
https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-22-interview-with-jarrod-mcgrath-from-smart
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