Each month, “Anschuetz on Leadership” episodes look at unique ways for business to approach leadership. Christian Anschuetz is an adventurer, entrepreneur, and United States Marine Corps Captain (not on active duty). He’s been the CIO of one of the world’s largest advertising firms, CDO of a global safety and supply-chain company, and founded a nonprofit to help connect military veterans with business leaders for mutually beneficial outcomes. Today, Christian talks about a recent study that indicated that 40% of the Fortune 500 could be wiped off the map in the next decade—and what’s going wrong inside the world’s biggest corporations.
Episode 15 | Warning Signs for the Fortune 500
The Big Themes:
- An issue of legacy: Related to the concept of “legacy” tech companies, huge companies are often held back by what Christian calls “the mindset legacy,” that narrowly defines what the business does and how it does it, with no room for evolution.
- The importance of culture: Christian says that a company’s culture can’t just be part of its overall strategy, an intellectual and emotionally agile culture needs to be the core strategy itself.
- Walking the walk when it comes to people: The only thing worse than working at a company that doesn’t want to invest in people is working at one that doesn’t want to invest, but claims publicly that people are its most important asset.
The Big Quote: “You’re never ever, ever going to build a high-performance team by having anything other than a radical candor and an ability to understand and accept criticisms, especially when they’re well deserved.”
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