6. Smarts and strategic thinking skills. Do they think strategically and holistically about their functions? Many people don’t realize that almost every function can act strategically. It is a good exercise to ask yourself as CEO, “What does a strategic X org look like?” (where X can be HR, ops, product, etc.). Do they think about how their functions can be a competitive advantage for the company? Most companies are only good at one or two things, which is often enough to be successful. But companies that can tackle more than one thing well tend to outshine everyone else (e.g., Apple with
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