Does the chief executive officer (CEO) belong to the list of endangered species? Anecdotal evidence suggests that it would be an exaggeration to say so. But there is, nevertheless, a kernel of truth here.

According to a recent study by global strategy and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, the average CEO’s tenure is 7.8 years. While this is up marginally from the 7.2 years since 2000, one must factor in a wider base: emerging market companies, now reaching a respectable global size, tend to be family-run. This makes for longer reigns. In America and Europe, the CEO turnover rate is 14 per cent. Japan clocks in a 14.5 per cent and it is 9.9 per cent for the rest of Asia.

If emerging markets are still keeping the CEO flag flying, emerging businesses — the new economy — are shoring up numbers in the other direction. The e-CEO (or i-CEO) is more vulnerable to getting the boot.

There are three ways to fail, says an article titled Why the e-CEO is an endangered species by Chris Harden of the PA Consulting group. “According to our research, based on discussions with more than 70 e-business heads, these are: death by misadventure; death by a 1,000 cuts; and death by heart failure.”

Misadventure refers to a mistake, a “preventable accident”. It happened frequently in the past as companies rushed to fill up Internet space. Death by a 1,000 cuts is when the enterprise faces resistance from the old guard in the firm. They and their henchmen resort to sabotage in several ways. Finally, heart failure is when a lack of resources cuts off nourishment to the vital organs of the new venture. “Our research (conducted a few years ago) shows that 60 per cent of UK e-CEOs expect to resign within 12 months — with significant consequences for them, their companies and shareholders,” writes Harden.

Yet the e-CEO is, at the end of the day, a lower class of chief executive: he reports to the CEO of the company. And, regardless of shortening CEO tenures, it is the individual CEO who is in danger, not the post itself. The threat to that comes from another quarter — the entry of women in the workplace.

“So far, women have been trying to work like men,” says Mumbai-based HR consultant Shashi Rao. “Now that they have established themselves in the workplace, they have begun to work like women. There is a huge difference in style.”

Financial services company Zurich recently commissioned The Future Laboratory to take a closer look at business and social trends in the UK. “According to experts, modes of business once dominated by male, linear and didactic work practices are being superseded by more collaborative approaches to problem-solving, as right brain thinking (complex, lateral and female in execution) increasingly becomes the norm,” says the study.

What does that mean in practice? “Look at the structure of any organisation,” says Rao. “Today, it’s like a pyramid. There is a boss at the top and a reporting structure. At each lower level, the numbers increase. There are compartments and limited knowledge flow. It is normal for the people in, say, the adhesives department to know nothing of the doings of the resin procurement business.”

“What we’ll see is a beehive-type structure,” she says. “Look at it as made up of joined, six-sided cells. Each side represents an employee; the six form a team. They work together; there are no bosses. When special skills are needed, the cell grows additional sides or stays the same as people no longer necessary for the task move to other cells. This is in a state of flux and people movements are governed by an exchange of knowledge.”

It does seem haphazard and uncontrolled. But specialists in organisational structures and behaviour are confident that this is the way to go. A fringe benefit: “Think of the saving in CEO pay,” says Rao.

WOMENOMICS*

The new world according to The Economist

lIn the US, the employment of men and women has almost reached parity. Since 1920, women’s participation in the US workforce has risen from just 20 per cent to close to 50 per cent, while men’s has dropped from 80 per cent to just over 50 per cent.

lIn developing countries such as China, women have played a big role in economic success. In East Asia, for every 100 men in the labour force, there are 83 women — a higher number than in the OECD countries. Since 1970, women have filled two new jobs for every one taken by a man. That increased employment of women adds up to much more than what China has added to the growth of the global economy.

lOn the consumption side, the statistics are well known. Eighty per cent of consumer goods are bought by and / or their purchase is influenced by women. The Economist points out to the work of a chief strategist at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo who created a basket of 115 Japanese companies that would benefit from women’s rising purchasing power. The stock prices of those companies in the past decade have gone up by 96 per cent; the Tokyo stock market has risen only 13 per cent. Such anecdotes show that women’s consumption is essential to companies’ bottomlines and to shareholders’ value — something every company understands.

Source: Adapted from The Economist

* The term Womenomics was coined by The Economist in an April 2006 article on Women and the World Economy