190 50 TOPEXECUTIVECOACHES
THOUGHT LEADERS
C. K. Prahalad
The Competitive Demands
on Today’s LeadersI
n the area of strategy, two trends are shaping the need for coaching today.
First, at the CEO level, there is probably more churn than ever before.
Newly appointed and possibly even new to his or her organization, the CEO
must quickly develop a point of view about how the organization will compete
in the future. Second, although the markets once granted CEOs several years
to deploy and execute this point of view, the CEO is now expected to start
producing measurable results for shareholders and customers right away.
Doing more of the same is probably not going to be the right answer going for-
ward. The complexity of the competitive environment, coupled with the col-
lapse in the time frame of expectations, adds urgency to the need for rapid
development of a meaningful competitive strategy.
The strategy coach is hired to be a trusted partner of the CEO during
the strategy building and deployment process. Why does the CEO need a
partner from outside the organization? Besides the critical thinking, experi-
ence, and strategy-building expertise that the coach brings to the table,
there is also the inherent loneliness of the CEO’s position. Who inside the
organization can the CEO turn to in working through ideas that will shapeC.K. Prahalad is Harvey C. Fruehauf Professor of Cor-
porate Strategy and International Business at the Univer-
sity of Michigan Business School. Dr. Prahalad is a
globally known figure and has consulted with the top
management of many of the world ’s foremost companies.
His research specializes in corporate strategy and the
role and value added of top management in large, diver-
sified, multinational corporations. He is the coauthor of
more than ten articles in the Harvard Business Review,
three of which won the McKinsey Prize, and coauthor of
Competing for the Future. BusinessWeekcalled him “a brilliant teacher at the
University ofMichigan, Prahalad may be the most inf luential thinker on cor-
porate strategy today.” Selected as one of the top 10 teachers in the world in
the Wa l l S t r e e t Jo urnal ’s Report on Executive Education, Dr. Prahalad can be
reached by phone at (858) 759-8948 or by e-mail at [email protected].