Campaign trails and corporate paths

In this age of individual empowerment, CEOs can learn from politicians and vice versa to make a real difference in their fields

It is high political season in the United States and like my fellow citizens I follow the presidential candidates - their strategies and policies, personalities and positionings, frustrations and foibles.

At the same time, my professional life involves advising CEOs and C-suite executives (on China strategies and activities). As such, I have a parallel opportunity to observe CEOs working their businesses and presidential candidates working their campaigns. And from all this I've been reflecting on what executive leadership, political and corporate, is all about.

At its core, political and corporate leaderships have similar objectives: to benefit the organization or institution as measured by the standard currencies of the sector. For example, in presidential politics, enhancing the well-being of the people as reflected by the unemployment rate (inversely); in corporations, increasing shareholder value as reflected by share price (directly).

Moreover, to be successful, political and corporate leaders must win "votes" in the marketplace - for politicians, in the media marketplace of ideas and ideology; and for CEOs, in the commercial marketplace of goods and services. The votes are cast by the people; in commerce, with their wallets every day; in US presidential elections, with their ballots every four years.

How the best politicians win elections yields practical advice for CEOs. Following are successful campaign strategies that can enhance CEO leadership.

Articulate a simple message. Presumptive Republican candidate Mitt Romney talks the economy and jobs, getting America back to work; US President Barack Obama talks fairness and investment in the future, such as education and energy-saving technologies. One CEO spun off his firm's most promising division into a separate public company, and thus each company told a simple story.

Articulate a grand vision. Obama had great success in 2008 with his message of "Hope and Unity" (though realities of office make his 2012 message less grand in comparison).

Romney's mission is to restore the competitive strength of American business, with an aggressive pro-American growth plan driven by a dynamic private sector. A technology CEO, concerned that his firm's revenues were coming largely from a medium-tech sector that was becoming a commodity, repositioned the company around three high-growth technologies, although they composed only a small part of current revenues.

Consolidate your base, and then reach beyond. Obama must secure the left wing and Romney the right wing. (Although this makes political sense, each is pressured to espouse positions more extreme than each hand-over-heart really believes, which is an unfortunate and unintended consequence of the system.) The legendary founder of a major retailer ruthlessly prunes divisions, constantly seeking to serve core consumers, and then and only then experiments with other market segments.

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