The qualities, competencies, and aptitudes that go into being a Chief Strategy Officer
The role of Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) is relatively new in the world of business. CSOs are professionals who focus on not just mapping out the company’s overall strategy but also ensures that the executive team makes decisions in line with it. A CSO essentially communicates, executes, and oversees the development of the organization’s strategies. Mostly, the CEO and CSO work closely together and create sustainable, long-term goals for the company. A CSO must provide insights to the CEO on strategy, support process planning and be responsible for various strategic initiatives in the organization.
A CSO’s role becomes significant during times of change, rebranding, expansion or during mergers and acquisitions. Some companies designate a CSO as Chief Strategist or even Vice President, Strategy.
Normally CSOs are professionals with many years of experience, knowledge of the industry that they work in, and a deep understanding of the business. What are the qualities, competencies, and aptitudes of a successful CSO? Let us look at this in depth.
People Management
In most companies, a CSO is responsible for the execution of business plans, hence it is essential that they have the capability of managing people. While a CSO provides general leadership, they have to directly monitor and manage people when working on specific projects. They will be required to provide feedback, know how to delegate tasks, and also encourage people to achieve the goals that they are working on.
Communication skills
A CSO will be required to work with several departments and get them to work together to achieve a strategic goal. This requires excellent communication skills. They will be required to give oral presentations and deal with employees across the board. Apart from oral skills, good written skills will be essential to translate the envisioned strategy and objectives to the rest of the team effectively. They have to be adept at drafting emails, letters, reports, statements and memos. Addressing an audience and being able to speak effectively and adjust their tone of delivery is a crucial skill that CSOs will require.
Understanding the vision
One of the key responsibilities of a CSO is to understand the company’s vision and ensure that it translates to every level within the organization. The understanding of the vision should drive the company’s business processes and goals. A CSO must be able to think outside the box and come up with innovative strategies and ideas to do this. The CSO must be creative and visualize the vision and communicate and ensure that people can use this to achieve their goals.
Leadership and managerial skills
One of the roles that a CSO has to play is to guide the team members, manage the project and supervise all the people working on the project. This requires strong leadership skills and the ability to motivate others. Apart from leadership in projects, CSOs also need to monitor projects and will be required to delegate work, monitor progress, and provide feedback. All this requires good managerial skills.
Strategic planning and critical thinking skills
A CSO must not just formulate strategy but also understand how it will work. They must be able to think about how the strategy will play out and what resources will be needed, how events will play out and affect one another and what are the challenges that can be expected along the way. Good planning and strategic thinking will be needed at every level. A CSO has to also work with a lot of data from within and outside the company on performance, market intelligence and even competitors. Drawing insightful conclusions and an ability to analyse the data and think critically will a key skill that a CSO must have.
Problem-solving skills
Things can go wrong at any time and it will be imperative for the CSO to tweak the strategic approach and find a solution to address it. This may sometimes work with a mild tweak or a short-term change to the strategy. However, sometimes, it may require better ways of working or sometimes even different employees or technology to ensure that the problem is solved and the strategy can be implemented.
Team work and flexibility
A CSO will be required to work with people across hierarchies and with other leaders within the organization. This will require good teamwork and an ability to resolve any problems that may arise with regard to style of working, working at cross-purpose with the goal of another team or even clashes in the style of working. A good CSO will be flexible and find ways to resolve and convince people and get things done. Flexibility will also be required when there are changes either from within the organization or from the market which will require the CSO to tweak and adapt the strategy accordingly.
Attention to detail
While strategy is always heady and cerebral, and involves the ‘big picture’, the company’s goals and so on, implementing it will require a lot of effort. The strategy will have to be broken down into actionable steps and minute planning and attention to detail will be required to ensure that the strategic goals can be achieved. As the adage goes, “The devil is in the details” and so even a mighty and strong strategy can fail if no attention is paid to the details that go into implementing it.
Integrity and ethics
CSOs are privy to a lot of confidential information related to the company’s goals, strategies, execution, operations, employee records, financial information and even market strategy. The role demands a very high level of ethics and integrity. Trustworthiness is a trait that cannot be compromised in this role.
Conclusion
CSOs have a very important role in an organization. They are responsible for identifying the strategic threats, opportunities and risks that an organization faces. Their role becomes critical especially during strategic mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures. They must have good communication skills that enable them to work with employees at all levels, consultants and executives to implement the strategies.
