MediaTek Chairman Tsai Ming-kai: The four most important things for a CEO

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MediaTek Chairman Tsai Ming-kai: The four most important things for a CEO [Copy link]

The CEO's decision is not an ordinary decision. The team's decision seems to be better, but we forget that if the team's decision gets 80 points, and the person who gets 90 points is pulled down, this person may be the CEO. Why is the CEO pulled down? Because team decisions tend to average. So the CEO is the main soul, he shapes the organization, and his opinion is still the most important. Whether it is wartime or peacetime, if the team is wrong, he must adjust. I remember McKinsey's research mentioned that when there is a key opinion (dominance factor) in the decision-making discussion, it should be listed, and the key opinion is better than the consensus decision. This is partly correct; but if today's senior team still says "I have personal interests" and "I don't want to take risks" when discussing things, it is basically a problem of company culture. Professional companies should have a mechanism to remove such things. Peter Drucker talked about decision-making, and some of his views are quite good. I just want to mention one point. The most important point of team decision-making is to listen to opposing opinions. He said, "If there is no objection, don't make a decision." Or like Jack Welch (former CEO of GE Group) said robust dialgue, that is, for any matter, be straightforward and don't say there is a backing intention. If it is a team decision, try to lay things out and make it transparent. If you need to object, object. Although it is mathematically correct that one person is better than average, decision-making is a process of brainstorming, not a mathematical problem of one person or team average. I think it is a communication decision-making mechanism. The team puts forward ideas and the CEO makes the decision. If the team is five people, the discussion process may be two to two. The CEO just makes the best and most responsible judgment based on his comprehensive experience. That's all. Now the problem is that personal decision-making often has many biases. Everyone has his own interpretation of past success and often uses past experience in current decisions. This is the source of bias, so the CEO can only try to avoid it when making decisions. According to Peter Drucker's idea, he is not against bias. He said that you should have an opinion before making a decision, but in the process of making a decision, you should verify your opinion one by one. Why consensus discussion is to come up with opinions. This is the most difficult part for CEOs to make decisions. The decisions they make must be convincing. Americans communicate directly, but Chinese communication is mostly indirect and has hidden intentions. In this regard, I completely follow Peter Drucker's ideas. How to be transparent? Bring things out and let everyone choose. If the CEO always does what he wants, the senior team will think, why should I give opinions? For the technology industry, the environment is changing, technology is changing, how to adapt? Especially when important paradigms are shifting. Recently, the Harvard Business Review wrote about the most important things a CEO got from Peter Drucker: First, how to define meaningful externalities, for example, changes in technology, what is a threat, what is an opportunity? Second, redefine your business scope at any time, which is what successful companies such as IBM or HP have always done. Third, balance between long-term and short-term. Fourth, thoroughly realize the company's values. Just like fund managers will say, past performance does not guarantee future returns. The biggest challenge for CEOs is that the methods that succeeded in the past may not guarantee success in the future. CEOs just do these four things. Therefore, the CEO is still the most important person in company decision-making. The senior team only provides opinions. Only by making full conversations between teams and avoiding CEO bias, coupled with the CEO's hard thinking, can the best decision be made. (Tsai Ming-kai)