Ceoship-Fin-CAMBA Saga! Is Wise to Use MBA and Finance and Chartered Accounting Degrees as the Barometers of CEO Candidacy and Recruitment?

The position of Chief Executive Officer is arguably the most powerful and most critical for any company, organisation, business, institution and even economy. Granted, I am using the term Chief Executive Officer in a very broad term to include variations of the position such as managing director, executive director, permanent secretary, director, general manager and others terms used to describe the ultimate decision maker in the day to operation of an organisation, or institution or company or business or any other formal organisation. Even in multi-ceod organisations where there is a group chief executive officer, each chief executive officer under the Group Chief Executive Officer is also an ultimate decision maker in the daily operations of an organisation and is part of most of the strategic decisions and actions of his entity or operation.

What I have always found puzzling is why, of all positions, there has been no serious training, education and development specifically for the position. This is important given;

1.?????? The hugely disproportional contribution of the chief executive officer to the performance and results, success and failure of the organisation. Some researchers argue that the Chief Executive Officer accounts for as much as fifty percent to the success or failure, performance and results of a company, organisation, business, economy or institution

2.?????? The high costs of dismissing the Chief Executive Officer for failure to successfully produce desired results. The golden handshakes for resigned, dismissed are huge and run into billions across the world. Add to that the huge losses in stock and share prices associated with a failed company and news of a dismissed or fired chief executive officer.

3.?????? Research of the CEO positions shows that the CEO position is unlike any other position in any organisation or company; even the contextual gap between the Chief Executive Officer Position and other positions in C-Suite is as wide as the North Pole and the South Pole. This effectively means that even promoting the best performing top executive below the Chief Executive Officer cannot make much difference because the contexts ate completely difference. I believe with this view 100 percent.

4.?????? It does not even need Plato’s level of logical thinking to see that the worst recruitment mistake that any organisation can ever make is to recruit the wrong Chief Executive Officer.

Now, it is a common tradition to use the possession of an MBA or Finance Degree (especially Chartered Accountancy) as the barometer of CEO potential. These two qualifications are used in many corporate jurisdictions. In fact, MBA and Finance degrees are not even used as “an added advantage” but a screening tools to disqualify other candidates who possess neither of these qualifications. This practice is deeply embedded in the choice selection of CEO candidates to a point that a bewildering majority of those in charge of selecting or recruiting or appointing CEOs seem not to listen to the growing call that the MBA and Chartered Accountancy and other Finance Degree are not an accurate barometer for assessing someone potential for being an effective Chief Executive Officer. Several researcher and prominent academics (Henry Mintzberg for example), have done empirical research that disproves any link between possession and MBA and CEO ability and performance. In one research, Mintzberg shows that as much as 47% of MBA Chief Executive Officers, some with MBA degrees from the world most prestigious MBA teaching institutions brought down their companies.

The CEO-Finance-CA-MBA saga has been stretched to a point where some people attribute bad company and organisational performance to having Fin-CA-MBA qualified CEOs. This is notion is now widely held especially in Africa in general and in Zimbabwe in particular. Some are even arguing that removing FinCAMBA CEOs is the solution for ending the underperformance of many of Zimbabwe’s companies, businesses and organisations. While using FinCAMBA qualifications to screen out potential candidates for CEO positions, arguing that having a FinCAMBA qualification is a hindrance to business and organisational performance is swinging the pendulum too far.

Our ongoing research in Ceology at Simon Bere Research and Development and Napoleon Hill Business School for Entrepreneurs shows research to date has not shown any correlation between FinCAMBA financial qualification and company, business and organisations. At the same time, current research studies on the CEO position and CEO performance shows no correlation between FinCAMBA qualifications and ceo performance. There are many successful and excellent non-FinCAMBA in the world especially in Europe and North America where CEO selection is many companies and organisations is more open minded. ?

Ceology, a branch of Berean Resultsology, is the scientific study of the CEO position, the success and failure of CEOs, and how CEOs produce the performance and results that they produce.

Research shows that CEO failures are generally high in the world, with figures of failure hovering around the 30 percent to 49% margin. Some research also shows that much as 30 percent of new Chief Executive Officers fail within three years. Add to that underperforming CEOs and failing CEOs in not for profit institutions where CEO failure is not so obvious and the results could be higher.

Our conclusion to date, based on our research and analysis on CEOship and CEO performance and results are;

1.?????? There is no evidence that having Fin-CA-MBA qualification is a hindrance to CEO performance; neither is it a critical element in driving CEO performance.

2.?????? Using FinCAMBA qualifications to screen out potential candidates for CEO positions is baseless, erroneous and causing a major contribution to CEO performance challenges by screening our high potential CEO candidates who do have higher CEO potential than some Fin-CAMBA qualifications.

3.?????? The absence of comprehensive position specific CEO training education and development is the biggest contributor to CEO performance issues, not the FinCAMBA innuendo. First time CEOs get into CEO positions without any evidence-based, science-backed theory of how to operate as a Chief Executive Officer-a new and completely different territory in scope and context for any first time.

4.?????? Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial, not necessarily CEOship, drive the success of for profit organisations.

5.?????? Some research by high profile researchers in leadership suggest that degreed executives excel very well in stable economic environments and in simple situations, but struggle in hostile and fast-changing situations. While degreed executives do very well in positive economies and stable situations, they underperform mainly because they lack what it takes to make effective decisions and sound action under rapidly changing situations and circumstances.

6.?????? The ceo position is a black box for all the stakeholders including those who professional recruit for the position, the boards that oversee the performance of the chief executive officers, other top executives and the rest of staff in organisations. Very few, if any among the stakeholders has credible understanding of what exactly must entail the CEO position, the skills, qualities and attributes that contribute to the best of CEO performance and results and how to choose the most promising candidate for CEO positions. Without some high quality theory for understanding the ceo position what exactly how it must be undertaken, every stakeholder including the CEO themselves resort to a bad concoction of guess-work, half-truths, falsehoods and pseudo criteria for CEO success. I just don’t understand why the world has kept this for this long.

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For this I will refer you to comments on CEOSHIP by Jack Welch, one of the acclaimed best CEOs of all time. Jack Welch, argued that, during his time at least, there was no “pat formula” for ceoship. He argued that everyone does it his or her own way.” He then goes to offer his own suggestions about how to succeed in the CEO positions. His ideas are valid and insightful, but they are not a complete theory and model for CEO performance. One then can argue how accurate one can be in selecting the best candidate for a position that lacks a formula in its performance! Is this lack of a pat formula not the major cause of CEO underperformance and failure and not the possession of, or lack of the Fin-CAMBA qualifications? Given the vital role of the CEO position, what is the wisdom of having a critical position for which there is no position-specific training, education and development?

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Our research in Ceology has led to our development of a comprehensive CEOSHIP training, education, development and support program for aspiring and practising CEOs. This is not another variation of an MBA program but a brand new model built of sound and comprehensive research including research work that has been done and continues being done on the CEO position, Ceo performance and results and CEO success and failure. The position of Ceoship is critically important and also very hard and complex. Chief Executive Officers need all the support they need while there is need to completely overhaul the whole process of preparing people for the position as well as the recruitment of Chief Executive Officers.

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