Chief executive officer

"Your career is your business, and you are its CEO."

"By far the most difficult skill I learned as a C.E.O. was the ability to manage my own psychology. Organizational design, process design, metrics, hiring and firing were all relatively straightforward skills to master compared with keeping my mind in check."

"The organizational design is the responsibility of the CEO, and the designers role is to act as midwife to aid in the rebirth of the organization."

"The dream of every CEO is to have one standardized, integrated, flexible and manageable landscape of aligned business and IT processes, systems and procedures. Having complete control over all projects implementing changes in that landscape so that they deliver solutions that perfectly fit the corporate and IT change strategies, makes this dream complete. The reality for many large organizations is quite the opposite. Many large organizations struggle to keep their operational and change costs in control. Key reasons are the inflexibility and enormous complexity of their business and IT structures, processes, systems, and procedures, often distributed across lines of business (LoB) and business divisions (BD) spread out over various regions, countries or even continents.., Over the last decade, Enterprise Architecture (EA) has been one of many instruments used by organizations in their attempt to get grip on the current operational environment and the implementation of changes. EA provides standardization, and sets a clear direction for the future to guide changes."

"Being a CEO is the nuts! A whole jumble of thoughts come to mind: Over the top. Wild. Fun. Outrageous. Crazy. Passion. Perpetual motion. The give-and-take. Meetings into the night. Incredible friendships. Fine wine. Celebrations. Great golf courses. Big decisions in the real game. Crises and pressure. Lots of swings. A few home runs. The thrill of winning. The pain of losing. Its as good as it gets! You get paid a lot, but the real payoff is in the fun."

"Getting every employees mind into the game is a huge part of what a CEO job is all about. Taking everyones best ideas and transferring them to others is the secret. Theres nothing more important."

"Executives are constrained not by resources but by their imagination."

"Neurotic impostor CEOs are also highly likely to become addicted to consulting companies because reassurances provided by “impartial” outsiders compensate for the executives’ feelings of insecurity."

"Successful innovators have CEOs who act as technology evangelists."

"For three decades I have had the privilege of working with more than 100 CEOs and their management teams. One of the most important lessons Ive learned from these CEOs is that business is more than strategy, competency, and return on investment. A large part is about the "soft" issues like relationships, personal growth, and (yes, Ill say it) feelings! Henry Ford may have put it best when he said, "A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business." I would venture to add that a CEO who improves only the bottom line is a poor CEO."