Chief Enabling Officer

Chief Enabling Officer

In a predominantly knowledge-based organization, it would be more productive for a CEO to see himself as a 'Chief Enabling Officer', and adopt the philosophy of the book "Employees first, customers second" by Vineet Nayar.
The CEO as chief enabling officer would use his/her position to empower personnel in a knowledge-based organization, encourage innovation, employee participation in decision making, idea development, skills transfer or cross-skilling, and lead the synergies towards excellence in customer service. A confident CEO would also encourage employees to participate in problem solving, even at the highest organizational levels, eg a CEO could have a website where he/she could describe problems and invite suggestions for their resolution.
Vineet Nayar's book is particularly relevant because the author shares his own experiences, and demonstrates that this approach is effective. Under the leadership of Vineet Nayar, HCLT has been voted the ‘Best Employer in India and Asia’ by Hewitt, the ‘Best Employer in UK’ by CRF, and also won the ‘Workforce Management Optimas Award for Human Resources Innovation’ in USA, was rated among the ‘World’s Most Democratic Workplaces by WorkBlu’, and was recognized by Fortune as the ‘World’s Most Modern Management’.
I am not easily impressed by either books or new ideas - however, Vineet Nayar's book [Employees First, Customers Second] is like a breath of fresh air. In today's knowledge-based organizations, where more and more employees are Gen-Y who would absolutely reject the 'Command and Control' leadership style, Vineet Nayar's approach becomes even more relevant. The fact that he has actually put his ideas into practice makes it all the more significant. Employees of service provider organizations these days not only come into direct contact with the customer, but also with the customer's employees. I believe it is not difficult to accept the fact that employees who work in an environment that is energizing [rather than enervating], dynamic, and facilitating, within a culture that is inclusive and transparent, are employees who practise personal discipline, thought discipline, and action discipline.

		Comments Sort by date Sort by rating Rating
		0 Padmanabhan, United Arab Emirates
	Chief Enabling Officer For a considerable number of years, I have acted in this manner for our department. I am not the CEO... Sign up

		6 Eric Schmitz Consultant, Belgium
	Customers First Always CEO's (and others) can be successful with the wrong strategies. And this seems one of those wrong st... Sign up

		5 sudhakaran Professor, India
	CEO's Role is Changing The CEO must come out of the "Command and Control" mind set and start "Connect and Collaborate". Th... Sign up

		4 Ted Garrison Management Consultant, United States
	Reality Check It's hard to get CEO's to realize they aren't that important - they are just a cog with a specific t... Sign up

		5 Kenneth W. Hein, United States
	Attitude is the Key... not a Label Utimately, it is a leader's attitude, in this case the one called the CEO, that will determine how t... Sign up

		3 Gary Wong Consultant, Canada
	Execution & Enabling As per Wikipedia, "enabling" has a double meaning. I prefer the positive view where one authorizes r... Sign up

		3 karel sovak Professor, United States
	Supposition of CEO While knowledge management is important, a CEO cannot put one over the other - employees and custome... Sign up

		6 Charles Tombazian, United States
	Employee First Works! The 'employee first'-mantra has been successfully proven to deliver extraordinary business results. ... Sign up

		1 R. Ganesh Manager, Saudi Arabia
	Sam Walton on CEO I think the confusion is cleared by the following, said by Sam Walton. "Organizations are successful... Sign up

		1 Klaver Project Manager, Netherlands
	Employees and Quality First and Customer Second Every manager should enable his/ her team (strategic, tactic and operational) to execute (perform) a... Sign up

		3 Mansingh Jaswal Director, India
	CEO as Leader Enables Certain Eco-systems to Evolve In order to create sustainable competitive advantage, it is important to have an ecosystem where kno... Sign up

		3 Mary Igo Strategy Consultant, United States
	Chief Enabling Officer I hadn't thought about it that way, but I have to agree that if you are taking care of employees, no... Sign up

		2 Erdohegyi Gabor Management Consultant, Hungary
	The Corporate Culture Will (Automatically) Reflect the Views of Top Management A corporate culture is a set of principles, values, rules, patterns of attitude, good traditions, et... Sign up

		0 Michael Park Strategy Consultant, United States
	The Customer Always Comes First I understand your thinking. Investment into your people is important and a viable competitive advant... Sign up

		3 Dea Mandery, United States
	Chief Empowerment Officer I think this is a great concept, and agree with the posts that indicate what an enormously positive ... Sign up

		-2 Jeff Gordon CEO, United States
	Enable Employees to Satisfy Customer Needs We must never forget that business exists for only one reason: to create customers. Anything the CEO... Sign up

		2 KATHRYN STEINER, MBA Entrepreneur, United States
	Employees Commitment Translates Into Long Term Customer Satisfaction If employees are onboard with the company strategic vision, it will propel them to contribute to wha... Sign up

		2 Dr Gary Jones Business Consultant, Australia
	The Term 'Enable' as in Chief Enabling Officer The term 'enabler' stemmed initially from a psychological perspective that describes a person that a... Sign up

		3 Arif ur Rehman Professor, Pakistan
	CEO is Like the Conductor of an Orchestra! You can’t ‘flute’ a symphony... For that you need an orchestra! And for the best ‘recital’ you nee... Sign up

		1 Samir Desai, India
	Who likes Chief Enabling Officer In a lighter vein: all those who are not CEO would like the concept of chief enabling officer...... Sign up

		0 Arif ur Rehman Professor, Pakistan
	The Chief Enabling Officer Samir, The moment you decide to 'carry' people along - while fully aware of their needs and capabil... Sign up

		0 Renella Bandinelli Italy
	Enabling CEO In a predominantly knowledge-based organization, leadership attitude has to be devoted to improvemen... Sign up

		0 Joseph Pangilinan Turnaround Manager, Philippines
	CEO: Enabling, but also Navigating, Engaging and Controlling The role of a chief executive officer is to lead the company in its efforts to execute the chosen te... Sign up

		0 Arif ur Rehman Professor, Pakistan
	CEO - Leading Through Serving I've always held that internal customers (our employees) come well ahead of external customers. Th... Sign up

		0 Charles Tombazian, United States
	CEO -- > Chief Enabling Officer OK, so we have lots of validation from around our globe that employees come first and the CEO's job ... Sign up

		2 Dr Gary Jones Business Consultant, Australia
	A General CEO is Needed After All Charles you have hit the nail on the head. Its a very complex situation. The variables such as emplo... Sign up

		0 Dinaz, India
	Chief Enabling Officer I totally understand the perspective from which this blog has been written. From the holistic point ... Sign up

		0 Arif ur Rehman Professor, Pakistan
	Real Leadership Real leadership begins with legal compliance, and sensible stewardship. This must shade well into e... Sign up

		0 Sylvia Grant Consultant, Australia
	How to Create an Enabling Work Environment Predicated on the assumption that employees who work in an 'enabling' environment will consistently ... Sign up

		3 Arif ur Rehman Professor, Pakistan
	Creating an Enabling Work Environment A matrix structure is highly supportive of the channels of open and informal communication and is al... Sign up

		0 Dr Gary Jones Business Consultant, Australia
	The CEO as Chief Enabling Officer Hi Sylvia, the first part of your question what STRUCTURE would best facilitate an enabling workplac... Sign up

		0 Sylvia Grant Consultant, Australia
	Creating an Enabling Environment I believe a flat organizational structure (rather than pyramidal) would best foster an enabling envi... Sign up

		1 Charles Tombazian, United States
	Creating an Enabling Work Environment Couldn't agree more with Sylvia. People watching people watching people work is a product of the ind... Sign up

		0 KATHRYN STEINER, MBA Entrepreneur, United States
	Behavioral Characteristics versus Leadership Traits Gary, I really favor the Japanese consensual management style, however, this method is difficult to ... Sign up

		0 Bill Boynton Teacher, United States
	Enabling Dr. Stephen Covey in his book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" talks about the inside-o... Sign up

		0 Arif ur Rehman Professor, Pakistan
	Leadership - the Balance A sane, palpable balance among the three i.e. character, skills and attitude are fundamental to lead... Sign up

		2 KATHRYN STEINER, MBA Entrepreneur, United States
	Leadership-the Balance-leaders Actions Speak Louder Than Words I suppose motherhood in many respects has prepared me well for leadership, since I always know my da... Sign up

		2 Dr Gary Jones Business Consultant, Australia
	Actions Speak Louder Than Words Never a truer word spoken Katherine. Out is the saying 'do as I say not what I do'. Without textual ... Sign up

		0 Arif ur Rehman Professor, Pakistan
	The Precarious Balance @Kathryn Pawley Steiner: I fully endorse your views – whatever the relationships we simply cannot ha... Sign up

		0 Joseph Matovu Uganda
	Productivity: Shrinking Staff, Expanded Sales Certainly the productivity paradigm points to customer supremacy; the humane dimension of human reso... Sign up

		0 Arif ur Rehman Professor, Pakistan
	Supremacy of the Customer: the Unchanging Paradigm! @Joseph Matovu Supremacy of the customer – whether internal or external – is the only variable that... Sign up

		0 Charles Tombazian, United States
	Triple Bottom Line @Arif Ur Rehman: love your unchanging paradigm notion Arif that thcustomer reigns supreme. I do thi... Sign up

		0 OGUNMOLA JOHN OLA. Nigeria
	Chief Enabling Officer Every organisation that wishes to continue to grown and remain in existence must strife to satisfy i... Sign up

		0 KATHRYN STEINER, MBA Entrepreneur, United States
	Satisfaction of Customers Should not Be at Expense of Employees I think that the upper management and CEO's, and all levels of management should get on the phones a... Sign up

		3 Nancy Muttu Manager, Uganda
	Vineet Nayar's Book Vineet Nayar's book brings out a very important view on management. The right work environment impro... Sign up

		2 Sylvia Grant Consultant, Australia
	Employees First, Then Customers First @Nancy Muttu : In response to your statement that the title "Employees First, Customers Second" by V... Sign up