Stephen H Baum Leadership

Over the New Year holiday, I was asked: “What is the one issue with which many CEOs grapple?” Several come to mind:

1. “What don’t I know that could “kill” me?”

2. (Corollary) “What wont anyone tell me?

3. “Am I pushing people too hard or not hard enough”

4. “Is the perception people take away from meetings with me the most effective one?”

In my twenty-plus years of coaching, these have always been the top issues. But in the past two or three years, a different one has become nearly universal:

5. Am I making the best choices for spending my time?

The reasons for this rising past the other issues in both frequency and importance are reasonably obvious:

– business (and academe) is more complex, more competitive and (recently) with survival as well as rank at stake

– organizations are operating with fewer people who are working harder, many at the limit of their capacity

-most organizations are flatter with more direct reports per leader

– the knowledge available to lead wisely is exploding, requiring more time to stay even

– there are relatively few decisions which can be taken at the pace you would like, many are event-driven

– all of the above are amplified for public companies and those highly regulated

– for those with young children, they are experiencing (and expecting) the same intensity of activities, learning and information access and satisfaction; and they grow early into demanding, interactive small people

My daughter-in-law — a former senior marketing executive, now stay at home mom — observes that this is not a problem to be solved, but a condition to be treated. It is how it is and will be.

So, what are the recommended treatments? Pretty obvious stuff (see below). The tipping point comes from (1) wanting badly enough to change and (2) knowing small steps to try (field experiments).

A partial list (more to follow in post later this month):

– Write down the top 6 roles and goals of the CEO for the next 90 days. What can only the CEO do or lead? Define key milestones and the few CEO actions or meetings needed to accomplish them (one client calls this a Done-By List). Keep this handy each day and ask: Am I spending time wisely?

– Review your calendar with family: what are the moments in the next 90 days when your presence will mean a lot to one of them? Make a 90 day family plan.

– Do you have reflective time in your day at all? Carve out white space each week for these three things: (1) kicking back and thinking (and jotting something down) (2) getting exercise and (3) working on one long-term goal (right now — last quarter of 2012).

For further reading, I highly recommend going back to some of Adam Bryant’s interviews with CEOs, reported in the NY Times:

Corner Office with Adam Bryant

For the record, adapting the above to any leadership position in an organization will improve focus, performance and possibly contentment (depends on what you believe are the consequences of failing to react quickly to all in-coming demands on your time).

That’s my view. Whats yours?

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