Ever wondered why your CEO isn’t taking you or your function seriously?

The answer may just be contained within a new report by executive search consultancy Hedley May.

Its Top Team Dynamic report surveyed 20 current and former CEOs to unpick the criteria necessary to build a high performing team, and to ask what transforms a function head, such as a director of corporate affairs, into a trusted adviser.

A key point to emerge is that most CEOs have just a handful of trusted advisers, in some cases only one, who is usually the finance director, but often two.

They may have a high performing leadership team, with a clear mission and goal, where each member understands their role in delivering that, but will rely on their trusted advisers for that extra candour.

Worryingly for corporate affairs directors, the report suggests that the second vacancy is increasingly being taken by the chief people officer. Hedley May suggests that people matters are often at the heart of the myriad business issues that the CEO now faces, while their work during the pandemic, and since, has elevated the status and value of the chief people officer.

However, it also counters that, while the door appears open to those two functions, ‘it also does not mean it is closed to others’, but: ‘To become that person a very complete skillset is required.’

The report identifies the three questions that corporate affairs directors need to ask themselves to assess whether they could take the trusted adviser slot.

Am I trusted to deliver?
If you’re heading a function, it’s a given – or should be – that you are good at your job. But it needs more than that. The report finds that CEOs value commercial judgment highly, but claim that few people truly possess it. But they also want resilience, people who can perform under pressure and make good decisions. They are looking for people who can manage complexity.

Am I ready to walk through the door?
Becoming a trusted adviser will not happen overnight. It will also not happen to those who fail to act with integrity or to treat people with respect.

Chemistry is also important. But the way to transform a relationship with a CEO is, according to the report, taking on a project that is personally important to him or her. And the key to being tasked to embark on such a project is to demonstrate that you have the bandwidth to do so.

Too many functional leaders, the report claims, work hard but are not alert as to what is on the CEO’s mind. As a result, ‘the opportunity to take the relationship to the next level passes them by and they remain in their functional swim lane’.

Am I able to tell the CEO what they need to hear?
Credibility comes with the ability to challenge or offer a different perspective.

Just telling a CEO what they want to hear may mean your job is safe, but does little to build credibility.

‘Having a view and being unflinching in sharing, instils a lot of confidence,’ says the report. But at the same time, there is a time and place for brutal honesty. Picking the wrong battle may come at a price. You have been warned.

Just like buses… another report

As luck would have it, no sooner had I completed my summary of Hedley May’s report, than another interesting (and related) one pops up in my LinkedIn feed. (Note to Helen: you need to get out more!)

This time the work is from the other side of the Pond, but it resonates with Hedley May’s findings, particularly around commercial judgment. Indeed, 66pc of the 125 CCOs surveyed ranked ‘strategic business thinking and financial acumen’ in the top three skills needed for success today.

Also polling 66pc of the votes was ‘executive presence and ability to counsel C-suite leaders’, with ‘mastery of the communications craft’ coming in third, at 53pc.

According to the inaugural Medill CCO Monitor, organised by the journalism school at Northwestern University, the top skills reflect ‘the need for CCOs to operate as full members of the executive team, not just functional experts’.

But these were also the skills which required the most on-the-job development, cited by one in four respondents. And that trend has not diminished. Three in four of those surveyed claimed that senior members of their teams needed to develop their strategic business thinking and financial acumen before they could hope to advance their careers.

As one respondent said: ‘The higher you move up, the less it become about ‘communications’ and the more it becomes about the business as a whole’, while another added: ‘The most effective communications leaders I know can dissect a quarterly earnings report and explain how their work impacts key business metrics.’

But they must do so while understanding the commercial, political and cultural dynamics shaping the business, carving out space in their working weeks to reflect on the knotty issues and their potential impacts.

It is a unique position that, too often, is not appreciated by the incumbent. As one corporate affairs director once said to me, when the CEO speaks to finance, talk will invariably focus on numbers and when he talks to the chief people officer, it’s about people issues.

The CCO is the only individual on the executive team that is looking out of the same window as the chief executive. And really successful CCOs understand (and take advantage of) that privilege.

Purpose in action

A wise man once told me that he knew that his board truly understood reputation when it turned down a product that would have been profitable in the short-term, but had a potentially negative long term-impact.

Chatting to a corporate affairs director this week about this subject, he put it a different way. If you claim to be a responsible business, he said, then every decision should be viewed through such a prism.

This week, Anthropic gave a very public demonstration of what this means in practice.

With a corporate purpose that aspires to the responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity, it was perhaps unsurprising that CEO Dario ‌Amodei refused to allow its technology to be used for mass surveillance or in autonomous weaponry.

The Pentagon acted in a typical, yet unprecedented, manner. It sulked, labelling Anthropic a supply chain risk, the first US company to be given a designation that is usually reserved for foreign adversaries.

What happened next demonstrates the unexpected benefits of being a responsible business. Of having a corporate purpose that is more than just a slogan in a marcomms campaign.

As OpenAI offered to fill the void left by Anthropic, a movement entitled QuitGPT rose like a phoenix. More than 2.5 million people have subsequently either cancelled their ChatGPT subscriptions or stopped using the app.

Meanwhile, Anthropic’s Claude shot to the top of the app chart, while the company’s annualised revenue rate surged to $19bn from $14bn just two weeks earlier. And, while I have no evidence to support such a claim, I imagine CVs will be flooding in from people wanting to work for a company with a conscience.

It is examples like this that cause me to roll my eyes when people say that purpose is dead. Or has been discredited. Certainly, when a company merely pays lip service to the concept, it has no tangible benefits. But when it is rooted throughout the business, corporate purpose can be a powerful machine.

On 21 April, I will be hosting Purpose in Action, a one-day event exploring this very subject.

Featuring speakers from Leeds Building Society, Lloyds Banking Group, Fyffes, Iceland Foods, the Met Office, Exchange for Change, Blueprint for a Better Business, and many more, tickets (priced at £100+VAT for in-house or £150+VAT for agencies) will go on sale next week, when the full programme will be available. To register interest, email [email protected].

Other dates for your diaries
CorpComms Awards open for entry: 23 March
CorpComms Awards close for entry: 5 June
Corporate Affairs Summit Dublin: 28 May
Corporate Affairs Summit London: 7 October

To register your interest in each or any of the above events, email [email protected].

Please note: both Corporate Affairs Summits are only open to senior in-house communications professionals. Tickets will go on sale shortly.