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Everyone
is A CEO
by Anthony Gruppo
As the CEO for the Marsh & Mc-
Lennan Agency Northeast, and now
Marsh Commercial, UK, people of-
ten asked me to dene the role of a
CEO. They want me to talk in terms
of a Chief Executive Ofcer. But I’d
rather not because honestly, I don’t
know how to dene it or what it
really means.
I believe that
everyone is a CEO
I look at it this way, if you can
coach yourself and others, can be
entrepreneurial in your thinking,
and act like an owner, you are a
CEO, no matter your job or your
title.
Nobody wakes up in the morn-
ing and thinks, “Let me look at the
corporate organizational chart, I
only have 4000 spaces to climb to
become the CEO.” Not a very mo-
tivating thought, is it? Wouldn’t it
be more motivating to see yourself
as the head of your own company,
right now, today?
I ask my colleagues to think of
themselves as a CEO, because it
is how I see them, and it is how I’d
like you to see yourself. Imagine
how different, how productive, how
animated, how energetic you could
be if your title, right now, was a
CEO.
Imagine if we thought and acted
like the CEO of our position in our
family, our life, our business and
our community? Imagine all of us
thinking and acting like owners of
everything we do and how great
we all could be together instead of
working in silos or limited by our
cubicles and titles.
Greatness is...
Think about how many times
you have heard the word ‘Great.’
Great athlete. Great businessper-
son. Great celebrity. What does
that mean? How do you dene
greatness?
Are we great when we hit ev-
ery benchmark, every goal, every
objective? Does the eight-year-old
with straight A’s come home and
say, “I’m Great,” and his parents
say, “Yep, you are Great, you have
made it, and now you are done?”
Or is the CEO Great once they’ve
hit their forecast for that quarter?
Or they’ve hit their annual goals?
Are they Great then?
I don’t think hitting benchmarks
is Greatness.
Perhaps the pinnacle of Great-