Well, I was a CEO of a \u00a35bn turnover, 25,000 person quoted company for 10 years. As with every new job, I kept a timesheet for the first year to check that my activities matched my priorities.<\/p>\n
In summary, I spent about one quarter of my time on strategy \u2014 thinking, researching, consulting, defining and communicating the future for the company. The structures I used for this were unremarkable \u2014 where to compete, how to compete and what strengths to develop (particularly people and culture) \u2014 because I felt our effectiveness in implementing all that stuff was much more important than any particular framework or methodology.<\/p>\n
I spent a quarter of my time supervising performance and risks – normal and regular business reviews, major project reviews and dealing with the inevitable crises and unexpected events. Over time, this proportion fell, because after 18 months or so I’d established a wonderful team of people who did this stuff much better than me.<\/p>\n
I spent another quarter dealing with building the strength of our people – evangelising (and hopefully personally demonstrating)\u00a0 our culture, recruiting, taking the temperature of the mood of the people, consulting with my HR Director (my closest executive team member), succession planning, presenting to groups at every level on development programmes, and thinking and researching what made people in our business effective and successful (most important conclusion; be clear what you expect of people, equip them, and then bugger off out of their way – very important message for policy loving central functions). This time proportion grew, justifiably.<\/p>\n
The remaining quarter was split more or less evenly between dealing with important stakeholders – mainly shareholders, but also government, key suppliers etc – and non-productive guff . Clearly, any person at work wants to avoid time wasters, but CEOs are probably afflicted by more than most by people who want to come and sell their latest idea, from investment bankers to industry lobbying groups.<\/p>\n
I did OK as a CEO, and I’m sure there are many, many better than me, but here’s a few reflections (also informed by my working directly for, and networking amongst CEOs for the last 25 years):<\/p>\n