Pop quiz: When CEOs’ strategies don’t work out, what factor takes 72 percent of the blame? Answer: Failure to manage the “soft stuff,” say Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra, McKinsey senior partners and authors of the forthcoming book, CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest (Scribner, March 15, 2022). In fact, the best CEOs manage the “soft stuff”—issues related to people and culture—with the same rigor and discipline as they do the “hard stuff” (finance, operations, etc.). , March 15, 2022). CEOs who boldly set their company’s direction create $5 trillion more in value than their peers during their tenure. That’s based on more than 20 years’ worth of data on 7,800 CEOs from 3,500 public companies across 70 countries and 24 industries.

Those CEOs who emphasized three critical organization-alignment tasks—culture, organization design, and talent management—were twice as likely to execute their strategies successfully. That’s based on more than 20 years’ worth of data on 7,800 CEOs from 3,500 public companies across 70 countries and 24 industries.

See what the authors have to say about the how the best CEOs align their organizations in this second video of a 7-part series, and stay tuned for more on the #CEOExcellenceBook in the weeks ahead.

“The CEO is the bearer of culture. I am a believer that you have to create cultures by design. They can’t happen by happenstance.”

–Piyush Gupta, CEO, DBS Group