“COVID-19 has changed how we look at the future,” says CEO
Fernando González of CEMEX, a global leader in the building
materials industry. “We started questioning and challenging
everything. The traditional ways of planning are outdated. We
sense every hour, every day, every week, and react to it.” As
CEO and President Mark Little of Suncor, Canada’s largest
energy company, puts it, echoing nearly every CEO we
interviewed, “We’ll never go back.”
The central, overarching question of this new era: what will
it take to be essential—to customers, employees, community,
and investors? The CEOs we spoke with almost uniformly
emphasized that focusing on the sharpest edge of their
businesses, what differentiates their organizations and delivers
the most value, has become the overarching imperative.
Out of the chaos has come clarity: get rid of diversions and
indulgences, root out “tradition for tradition’s sake,” and exploit
distinctive advantages. This applies externally, in products and
services, as well as internally. Who is essential to your organi-
zation, and what is essential to the operation of your business?
While many of our findings were indeed extraordinary, we also
discovered that a retrenchment—focusing on the basics—may
be equally as important as we move beyond the COVID
disruption into whatever comes next.
“We must have the courage and conviction to focus on a handful
of priorities,” says CEO Jeff McElfresh of AT&T Communications,
which serves more than 130 million US customers and nearly
all of the Fortune 1,000. “We can no longer juggle a hundred
plates. Strip away distractions, and then invest all of your
energy, your resources, to only the things that are going to make
you the most successful. Shift activity in the company to rely on
partners for some functions. What are we really good at? Rely
on somebody else for other ingredients.”
“Strip away distractions, and
then invest all of your energy,
your resources, to only the things
that are going to make you the
most successful.”
Jeff McElfresh, CEO, AT&T Communications
Introduction | 3
