Summary Of The Book Managers graduate from ‘What does my boss want?’ to ‘What does the CEO really want from me?’ through the course of their working lives as they ascend the corporate ladder. This question now requires an answer more than ever as interactions with the managers become frequent at the workplace.
In the book What the CEO Really Wants from You : The 4 As For Managerial Success, Gopalakrishnan’s answer is the 4 A’s: Accomplishment, Affability, Advocacy and Authenticity, that he fits together quite well. He illustrates each A with simple examples and case studies as explained in the foreword by Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever. Gopalakrishnan explains that managers need to be Accomplished by delivering results, which includes coordination with workers and execution of tasks effectively. The 2nd A is to be affable by getting along with co-workers and subordinates. This includes the ability to push people into delivering results and being able to put personal opinions aside while being part of a team. The 3rd A stands for advocacy which he explains is the skill of a manager in being able exercise his influence without employees having to report to him even as his role is elevated in the company. Finally there is authenticity which would determine his/her true value based on what the person stands for.
One of the most important things that the author lays emphasis on is how the key to success is knowing how to balance personal goals and handling the work environment which includes relationships with the boss and colleagues. The author derives his explanations from the Harvard Business School, Ramayana, neuroscience, storytelling and states examples of Sarath Fonseka, former army chief of Sri Lanka, Coriolanus of Shakespeare and Darbari Seth among others to show how the 4 A’s impact executives.
What the CEO Really Wants from You : The 4 As For Managerial Success includes case studies from companies like ISRO, Pfizer, Goldman Sachs, Hindustan Unilever and Tata Group. The book will be very useful for young managers who are just stepping into management.
About R. Gopalakrishnan R. Gopalakrishnan is an Executive Director with Tata Sons. He wrote When The Penny Drops: Learning What’s Not Taught and The Case of the Bonsai Manager.
Gopal, as he is called, studied at St. Xavier’s, Calcutta and engineering at IIT Kharagpur. He comes with 31 years of experience at Unilever. He was the Chairman of Unilever Arabia, and as Vice Chairman of Hindustan Lever Ltd and Managing Director of Brooke Bond Lipton India. He has also worked for 14 years at Tata Sons.
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