AlisonKling

A brilliant analysis of CEOs who charted their own course by staying laser focused on shareholder value, rather than earnings or sales growth for its own sake, and in doing so outperformed the S&P 500 by a factor of 20. The authors discuss 8 CEOs who created exceptional long term value by excelling at capital and resource allocation. One of my favorite examples of this is the discussion of Tom Murphy at Capital Cities, and his decentralized approach to leadership: “an admission that headquarters does not have all the answers and that much of the real value is created by local managers in the field.” He created a culture of extraordinary autonomy: “hire the best people, and then leave them alone.” He stayed laser focused on creating an ethos of economic efficiency across the organization paired with strong investment in long-term growth. The company hired young leaders, trusted their staff and had extremely low turnover. Each CEO highlighted are outliers because they often ignored what their peers were doing and remain focused on the disciplined work of creating long-term value.