Before I go into detail about the article, I must say that Prof. Lazear is a BEAST when it comes to the world of Economics…seriously, this guy is an absolute legend. I didn’t realize how big of a deal this man was until after I graduated from the GSB. In hindsight, I really wish I’d taken a class with Prof. Lazear during my time at the GSB, but my focus was on Strategy and Leadership and he didn’t really touch those areas. That said, I’m a strong believer in anything that he says when it comes to labor issues, so the article below immediately caught my attention. I won’t give too many details here, but the high-level summary of Prof, Lazear’s recent research is that one should not specialize in one area of business too deeply if he/she wants to move into a C-level position (i.e., CEO, COO, CFO).
This may seem basic to some of you, but it is totally different than what I believed to be true when I was going into business school. At that time, I believed that one had to be really focused and strong in a certain functional or industry area in order to have a shot at the C-suite. So, in my case at the time, I wanted to be the strongest Strategy guy as I could in order to eventually be CEO. I now know that this approach isn’t exactly the optimal path, but the only reason I know this is because I had it hammered into my head during the MBA Core curriculum. For people who haven’t attended B-school, this could be truly be a new insight that they haven’t heard before.
As stated in the article, the path that improves one’s chances of becoming a C-level executive is to play several different roles within a company and learn about several different areas of the business. That way, you would have a better understanding of the business overall and would be better prepared when any number of issues arise. I find this to be especially relevant to people like me who know that they want to be a CEO one day, but have yet to figure out what the optimal way to get there is yet.
I hope you find the description of this recent research by Prof. Lazear to be as interesting as I did.
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Title: Don’t Be Too Specialized If You Want a Top Level Management Job
Author: Louise Lee
Source: Stanford GSB News – http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/LazearleadershipAug20.html
Excerpt text from the article:
Aiming for the C-suite? You’re more likely to get there if you’re a generalist.
Researching the question of just who is likely to land a C-level job (CEO, COO, CFO) and why, Stanford Graduate School of Business labor economist Edward P. Lazear has found that generalists, who have knowledge in a broad range of areas, hold a higher chance of reaching the corner office than do specialists. “The higher you get in an organization, the more likely you are to encounter problems from a variety of different areas,” he says. Because CEOs in particular encounter so many different kinds of issues, “those people have to be generalists.”
