Nitin Nohria spent a decade as dean of Harvard Business School, and taught his first workshop there for new CEOs in 1997.
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Nohria → spend → 1997
Many of today’s business leaders think of that era as an easier one to navigate, but he rejects the idea that today’s technological and geopolitical upheavals have changed what companies need from their leaders.
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companies → think → leaders
The demands of the job have been “more constant than different,” he says: The people who respond well to the conditions of their time “end up writing a great chapter, and the people who respond to it poorly don’t.”
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who → say → it
Nohria has distilled such insights into a new book, The CEO: The Role, the Reality, the Responsibility.
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Nohria → distil → book
Its most important message, he says, is that the CEO’s job is “not to make all the decisions, but to create the conditions that allow other people to make decisions well.”
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people → say → decisions
Leaders should invest their time “to multiply impact rather than to answer demands.”
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Leaders → invest → demands
Nohria also chairs Thrive Capital, whose founder and managing partner, Josh Kushner, recently backtracked on a plan with FIFA to commercialize the World Cup, after it generated a fierce backlash.
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it → chair → backlash
Kushner has invested in OpenAI and SpaceX, and his former HBS teacher sees AI as the defining challenge for this generation of CEOs — even if it also offers an answer for those who find it lonely at the top.
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it → invest → top
The technology heralds a new era of decentralization, he believes, and that will make the people CEOs have surrounded themselves with feel threatened.
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CEOs → herald → themselves
But the leader’s job is “even more compelling” in a decentralized organization, Nohria argues.
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Nohria → argue → organization
“Vision, alignment, purpose, culture — these things will become even more important in the future of these organizations, and that is uniquely the job of the CEO.”
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
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interview → become → clarity
What do you think it changes about the CEO’s role?
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it → think → role
We don’t have visibility yet into all the ways in which AI is going to play out in the lives of a Fortune 500 CEO, how much AI will rearchitect firms’ business processes and workforces, or where we will see opportunities for new revenue.
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we → have → revenue
But I’m sure that any CEO who comes of age today, if they haven’t come up with an answer to that by the end of the decade, will not be [a] great [CEO].
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they → ’m → decade
The second part, though, is that AI provides opportunities for CEOs to have a virtual board of directors, a new person on the team, and a way of interrogating their own thinking which may reduce the loneliness of being a CEO.
uncertain
which → provide → loneliness
If you end up using it as a substitution, I think you’ll probably end up making a mistake.
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you → end → mistake
But if you say, “It would be nice to have, out of the eight people in my executive team, two people who bring to us a superintelligence on an ongoing basis that informs our discussions, interrogates our discussions, causes us to think differently, and forces us to make judgment calls better,” that could be a plus.
uncertain
that → say → calls
To what extent does AI change the structure of the modern corporation?
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AI → change → corporation
Companies have organized themselves in functional silos, and this is a cross-functional technology.
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this → organize → silos
As a student of organization structure, it’s been striking to see the pendulum swing between decentralization and centralization over time.
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pendulum → see → time
I think that this will be a moment of decentralization again.
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this → think → decentralization
Because what was the reason to have a large headquarters?
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reason → have → headquarters
It’s because we could not hire enough CFOs or general counsels to put into every business.
uncertain
we → ’ → business
[Companies] say, “These are precious forms of expertise.
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These → say → expertise
We want to keep them in the center.”
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We → want → center
But now you could bring all of that intelligence to the edge.
uncertain
you → bring → edge
I think this is going to be another decentralizing moment in which we can bring the expertise that resided in the headquarters back out to the front lines.
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that → think → lines
Is that threatening for the central power of the CEO?
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that → threaten → CEO
Some of the current friction in the adoption of AI comes from the fact that it does restructure power in an organization.
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it → come → organization
When power changes in organizations, companies end up having friction to adapt to that power.
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companies → change → power
Because there’s one thing that is eternally true about human beings: that nobody gives [up] power easily.
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nobody → ’ → power
I’m not sure that it makes the CEO necessarily less powerful.
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it → ’m → ?
I think it makes the corporate infrastructure that CEOs have usually surrounded themselves with feel more threatened.
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CEOs → think → themselves
Are we entering a new realm of CEO responsibility when some CEOs are overseeing technologies they say could end humanity?
uncertain
they → enter → humanity
AI will create yet another set of profound responsibilities to make sure that businesses’ relationship with society is not one in which society says business is harmful.
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business → create → which
All these CEOs will have an added [responsibility to] navigate AI so that people feel that this moment was to the benefit, in the end, of society, even though there are often some dislocations along the way.
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moment → have → way
You do have to, as CEOs, be responsive to the fact that your license to operate comes from society.
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license → have → society
How do you apply these principles in your role as chairman of Thrive?
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you → apply → Thrive
My role at Thrive is at its core to remain a teacher.
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role → remain → core
Josh [Kushner] and others knew me as a teacher, and the job of the teacher, in my experience, is much more to ask the right questions than say that I have the right answers, and to ask questions that interrogate our thinking, that force us to think more deeply.
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that → know → us
…and 15 more, not listed.
The Aporia
