perspectives.” Says AmerisourceBergen CEO Steve In light of the newfound connectivity among CEOs Collis, “From an external perspective, I’ve been a within and across industries happening in this beneficiary of amazing calls with other CEOs who moment, CEOs will benefit from reflecting on the have been willing to share their knowledge. This has following questions: been such a growing experience.” — What peer networks should I continue to It’s no surprise that CEOs are seeing the benefits create beyond the crisis (in particular, those in of connecting in new ways during this crisis. analogous but not identical situations)? The urgency of the moment has given focus and urgency to the nature of the dialogue. Kate Walsh, — What makes for a valuable peer interaction, and CEO of Boston Medical Center, started talking how can I ensure that these conditions are in to her peers early in the pandemic, when Boston place when I interact with other CEOs? was becoming one of the country’s COVID-19 hot spots. “Hospital CEOs realized we were chasing — Beyond role modeling, how can I encourage my each other around the supply chains,” says Walsh. senior team and other leaders to enrich their own “We began to coordinate, so at least we could let networks and the velocity of learnings with their people know that we’d give everybody a mask peers across industries? when they come to work on Monday morning. It became almost a daily call [with other hospitals] as Leverage networks to tackle a broad set of issues we tried to figure out how to respond to the volume CEO networks also have a unique potential to enable of cases.” Leaders are less focused on showing up some of the other things we have talked about thus to large group meetings and putting on a corporate far in this article. CEOs in noncompetitive industries face that suggests “We’ve got it under control.” are well positioned to both challenge and support Instead, they are intent on accelerating problem their peers in aiming higher; in sharing learnings, solving together by building on one another’s ideas, best practices, and encouragement regarding iterating novel solutions to use in the workplace, elevating “to be” to the same level as “to do”; and in trading notes, and moving forward having learned working through how to fully embrace stakeholder what works best. They are also encouraging one capitalism. another to conduct bold experiments, taking advantage of the current environment to do A/B The pharmaceutical industry’s “10x” rush to counter testing on a massive scale and trying new ways of COVID-19 bears witness to this. As Christophe operating virtually and digitally. Weber, CEO of Takeda Pharmaceuticals, explains, “We started the development of a plasma-derived In order for CEOs to leverage such interactions medicine for COVID-19 by ourselves. But our head in the future and accelerate impact on shared of Plasma-Derived Therapies realized that if we challenges, they will have to continue to approach formed an alliance with other plasma companies, we such opportunities—both formal and informal— could go much faster and would have the potential with humility, a learning mindset, and an open- to produce a product on a bigger scale. So now we minded commitment to ongoing development. The have a pro bono, not-for-profit alliance. And we benefits of doing so are more significant than one have a very good alliance with other major plasma might imagine: role modeling this has the potential companies, smaller ones, and also nonplasma to create more open learning organizations for companies, like Microsoft. When everybody saw that companies, and to identify the cross-industry it was a true alliance to do good for society, we were analogies that often provide the touchstone for able to get the convergence of many companies.” innovation. Without the pressure of a crisis, however, leadership resolve will be required to maintain such This interest in shared success can create wins for an approach—research makes it clear that none of multiple stakeholders. “Part [of the adjustment to 6 this is easy for people in powerful roles. COVID-19] is focusing even more on partnering with 6 See Jennifer Garvey Berger and Zafer Gedeon Achi, “Understanding the leader’s ‘identity mindtrap’: Personal growth for the C-suite,” McKinsey Quarterly, January 2020, McKinsey.com. The CEO moment: Leadership for a new era 153