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KPMG | Fortune

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U.S. Chair & CEO Paul Knopp says that corporate purpose needs to realign with stakeholder needs.

KPMG's 2020 CEO Outlook provides insight into a post-pandemic business world

Leadership

Paul Knopp says that corporate purpose needs to realign.

KPMG's 2020 CEO Outlook provides post-pandemic insight

Paul, Thank you so much for joining us to talk about KPMG CEO Outlook. A survey. You know, what stood out the most for me was that a majority of CEO said that they feel more confident about the growth process of their own companies than they feel about the outlook for the U. S. Economy and the global economy. Why is that? It seems like there's a bit of a disconnect there, Susie. It's a pleasure to be here with you today, So thank you for inviting me. I think it's largely about knowing their companies, the uncertainty in the economy in general, the resilience with respect to the way they manage their enterprises. I think it gives them a bit more comfort with respect to the prospects of their own company versus that uncertainty that exists in the economy, for instance, with respect to fiscal stimulus and how that might play out of the long term. Well, obviously we're still in a pandemic crisis mode. Infections are still on the rise. It's going to take a while before everyone can get a vaccine. But there are some CEOs who are preparing for a post pandemic world. You talk to so many CEOs. They're your clients at KPMG. How do CEOs describe the new normal? I think that CEOs are clearly thinking about the kind of progress they've made with innovation, digital acceleration of their business models, their operating models, next generation operating models during this crisis, they really want to take advantage of what they have accomplished with respect to innovation and keep that momentum moving to the future. I think the other thing to Susie that's very clear from our CEO Outlook survey and the CEOs I talked to is that we are all going to be emphasizing purpose, values and culture moving forward and and more robust employee engagement. So those are things that I think we've all learned during the pandemic, in addition to obviously new ways of working too well, speaking of new ways of working, one of the things that came out in your survey is that almost 70% of the CEO say that they're gonna downsize their office space. And we've had so much anecdotal evidence that employees, um like this idea of remote work, and so do a lot of companies. If that business model does change, what impact will that have on things like innovation, teamwork and culture that you were just talking about. I think in the future we're going to have a much more hybrid working model. There's no doubt about it. Many of our employees and many of our clients employees enjoy working at home, and they want more remote working opportunities. But I think we're still going to come together to idea, to create, to collaborate in offices, but also in our learning and development facilities. KPMG just invested in what we call KPMG Lake House, which is a real cultural asset for us, and it really brings us to a place for learning and development where we can do that kind of ideation and creation. And many companies have that that same challenges we move forward in the future. Also, though I think that we are all thinking about how we sustain our culture, you know, if you're going to work more remotely in the future. Many business leaders and CEOs I speak to they want to speak about that topic. How are you sustaining your culture with more remote working? You know, what are you doing in particular to engage with employees to ensure that the values that you built your organization with remain with your employees and you think about Onboarding new employees and this is crazy environment they were in. I mean, today, you can you can interview and onboard somebody without ever meeting them on physical site. And we all need to find ways to ensure that we sustain our culture and ensure those employees understand the values with which we built these organizations so that we continue to deliver the kind of great services that we've historically delivered in the great products we've delivered with A with a workforce that's really thinking about our purpose and our values in our culture. In your survey, the majority of CEOs in fact 77% said that they need to evaluate their corporate purpose. Tell us more about what CEOs mean by that the pandemic and the social justice crisis have really shone a light on all of our stakeholders. So you think about this pandemic and some of the other issues that we're facing into our clients, our employees, our communities have all been impacted dramatically by the crisis in different ways. So as we think about the purpose of our organizations. You are very much thinking about how we serve the needs of those different stakeholders, and they all have different needs at this time. Our clients are looking for ways to digitally transform their organizations to serve their own clients better their own customers better. Our employees are looking for more support in a very difficult environment, and our communities are dramatically impacted by this crisis. You think about how different industries and sectors have been impacted, how minority communities have been disproportionately impacted by the crisis as business leaders. It's really incumbent upon us to think about how those different stakeholders are impacted and what kind of solutions that we can bring to bear to ensure that we're meeting the needs of those stakeholders. So where does diversity and inclusion fit into this whole discussion of purpose? As you know, a few months ago, many CEOs were making commitments and promises that they want to do a better job in creating a diverse workforce. What our CEOs telling you now the diversity inclusion. It's certainly at the top of the list, that of topics life speak to CEOs and business leaders that they want to discuss. It's both about the progress we're making in our organization and the progress they're making in their organizations. So we we have CEOs and business leaders feel an obligation to to help lead societal change, the pandemic. Some of the social justice issues have really hastened the call for change in society, and the business community has a significant role to play in leading that change and really being role models for change in society. So I think, you know, we have really taken that challenge on as a business community as organizations, and we're really trying to drive meaningful change to drive more inclusion and diversity in our workforce is Paul. You've been a CEO at KPMG only since July, and you say you've gotten an intensive and valuable course in leadership because of the global pandemic, social and civil unrest and an economic crisis. So what is the most important leadership lesson you learned through all of that? And how is it shaping the way that you want to leave KPMG? Susie, I think that's probably the most important leadership lesson I've learned during this crisis. Is the importance of inclusivity being front and center and really engaging with our leaders in our people throughout the whole organization. So you think about working remotely. That can be very difficult, But people are looking for a real guidance in this pandemic. All the uncertainty that we're facing, you know, what our employees and our leaders are looking for is engagement and more frequent engagement. They really want to understand the strategy of the organization. They want to understand how they can help during such uncertain times. So I found that very beneficial to be very inclusive during this time, you know, to reach out to leaders and to reach out to individuals and organization that may have only been with us a year to get their perspective. So I've been very intentional about thinking about our culture during this time, thinking about how I engage with people and thinking about the various layers of our organization and the different perspectives that each person might have might bring to bear so that we can do the right thing for our particular organization. And that's what I thought about during my five months is leading KPMG

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