Barrick Gold has recently appointed two Presidents. To me, this is a "kiss of death" decision.
Co-Presidents and co-CEOs immediately transform a chair of the board into an operating chairperson. The chair now becomes the cross-over manager, the manager who is called into play when conflict exists between the two people at the top. This compromises the chair. Whom will he or she support?
Having co-CEOs and/or co-Presidents immediately exacerbates the question of who is accountable for what. Nothing in the structure is clean any longer; often there is inadequate delineation of roles. Employees are subject to consternation and dithering.
Inevitably, the executive team will be bifurcated. One side will align with one CEO (or President), another side with the other.
I often hear the rebuttal that having co-CEOs does work. They will be collegial and collaborative, I'm told. It might work for a start-up, but as an organization grows it becomes much more complex to manage. Having two people at the top presupposes "good chemistry"!
This was the challenge for RIM where they grew exponentially to achieve sales of almost $20 billion in 2011. In RIM's case, having co-CEOs killed its ability to respond swiftly to competitive challenges and shut down the type of thinking required to solve threats or take advantage of sudden opportunities.
Now Barrick has gone the same way. What game is this company's chairman playing, pulling decision-making higher in the organization? It can only cause employees huge angst and pressure to prepare and sell ideas at the board level. I believe you have the potential for a real mess.
All employees crave consistency and clarity in their work; all employees require discretion and authority to carry out their accountabilities. A structure with co-Presidents and co-CEOs at the top will not provide what employees want and need to do their best work.
