Biography:
Ram Charan is a highly acclaimed speaker and advisor for his uncanny ability to resolve his toughest business problems.During thirty five years,Dr Charan has worked with some of the most successful companies,such as Verizon,Novartis and DuPont.
He was raised in the small Indian town where he worked in the family shoe shop while he began his business studies.There,he earned an engineering degree and then,he took a job.He also earned MBA and doctorate degrees from Harvard Business School,where he graduated with high distinction.
Dr.Charan is well konwn for taking into account the real-world complewities of business and for his recommendations on achieving profitable growth,such as the search for "singles and doubles".Many people have come to know Dr.Charan through in-house executive education programs.
Because of his energy and interactive style of teaching,he has won several awards such as the best teacher award al Northwestern.During the past decade,Dr.Charan has written many books and articles.Some of them have sold more than two million copies.These include "What the CEO wants you to know".He has also written two tales: "Whay CEOS fail" and "Why companies fail".
He was elected a Distinguised Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources and he has served on the Blue Ribbon on Corporate Governance.
LEADERSHIP IN THE ERA OF ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY
DuPont CEO Chad Holliday realized that the economic crisis was spreading to the financial industry.When Holliday arrived at the United States,he called together the top leaders to talk about this.
How the CEO of DuPont reacted to the current economic crisis?
DuPont has created a plan,called the Corporate Crisis plan.If it is invoked,DuPont´s managers appear to evaluate the cause of the crisis.This plan is not used too much.
The plan inmediately brought together the members,and after the course of four days,they realized that the nature of the crisis was only financial.At the end,they determinated what was needed to ensure DuPont´s viability.
The company´s chief economist and the head os its pension were called to explain the employees the crisis in nontechnical language and its effects.Ten days later,the manager told the company what to do and he carried out a survey to see wether the employees knew what they had to do.In general,employees seemed to have obtained it but the problem was that they were not doing it so quickly enough.
Holliday together with CEO y CFO,met with the company´s top leaders to see how to cope with the crisis and the only problem was the speed.It was necessary to reduce costs and the fastest way was to reduce as much as posible the contractor the company had hired.
DuPont inicial reaction of the spread of the crisis lasted less than six weeks.And even when things returned to normal,they predicted that the inflationary trends will be reaffirmed,but DuPont will be prepared.
He accepted the change and he took important steps,so it is what leaders have to do now.
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