A human CEO, who knows how to value the ‘us’ vs. the ‘I’

Last September 8th, AD Store, a Parma-based public relations and communications agency, presented at the group’s Italian headquarters, its first ‘Human Report,’ that is, a compendium listing all the year’s activities and especially the tools with which to measure the agency’s ability to produce shared social and economic value. We repeat, because this is something totally new: not just profit generation at the sundown of the year, but first and foremost an organic approach to doing business, which starts from the creation of social value, distributed and for the benefit of all. These last words are crucial, in order to understand the evolution of the enterprise itself in light of the post-Covid world and an era in which big technologies and the challenge of sustainability require any CEO to rethink the way he or she runs a business. The AD Store event is just one of many signs of a change now evident in the Italian and international business landscape.
These, in fact, are the themes we have been covering, for two years now, in Il Sole 24 Ore’s series of video interviews called ‘CEO Confidential,’ edited by Pierangelo Soldavini and Frank Pagano. These are also the themes contained in the two books the authors have written downstream of the series, ‘First. Don’t Lead’ and ‘CEO Factor’. The work done is a review of the thoughts, opinions, desires and hopes of 150 Italian and foreign CEOs grappling with the imperative of business transformation in the face of frontier technologies, sustainability, communication done with people and mindset change. One strong message emerges: the ‘we’ must prevail over the ‘I’ if we are to survive not only as producers of something or entrepreneurs, but as humankind and society.
At this point, the key question is: what is the ‘CEO Factor,’ the key or essential factor for our future? What will the CEO of tomorrow and his team look like? The leader of the future loves change, listens to everyone and has the humility to re-learn his or her craft every single day. Social, environmental and ethical awareness is put on the same level as the bottom line. Technology, sustainability and communication serve a mindset of breaking with past leadership models. The CEO of tomorrow is ‘human,’ as Ad Store says. What the CEO runs is a human business, and it goes without saying that any report or outcome must be human, community, social, and centered on earning ‘us’ first.
But how do you make this change of pace? It takes courage, and this is the virtue we need to cultivate in our young, student or newly hired, and not-so-young people. “The courage to rethink an old dream that is now plastic, the courage to disbelieve the doom and gloom and fears of every day, the courage to decide to build a different, good, healthy world. The courage to accept challenges that seem impossible, but are not.”
Reading ‘CEO Factor’ is meant to inspire all young minds to become ‘courageous captains,’ serving with continuous learning, a culture of doing and a balance between professional and personal life, embracing a holistic concept of mental and physical health. Above all, we need managers who can draw on creativity and technology to put everyone’s interest back at the center of our world. Yesterday’s CEO agenda was fundamentally lazy, i.e., based on a few indicators, all taken from a linear production model and a predictable world; in essence, it was an agenda that spoke to the brains of administrators. The agenda of tomorrow’s CEO is rich and complex. Therefore, it appeals to all their humanity and kindness.