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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Vistage Internatonal CEO Membership Organization

This year, as always, some of the techniques introduced into our group meetings by world class expert workshop leaders (and some that have been proven in other Vistage CEO groups) had “take home value.” In fact, individual “bosses” reported success within their organizations with four different exercises.

One of these is Tribal Leadership in which different approaches to leading segments of the workforce differentiated by their world view — levels of negativity or positivity about their own life, the lives of others and how the world works. We highly recommend reading the book by Dave Logan.

Tribal Leadership

Another is “issue processing” in which someone makes himself/herself vulnerable by presenting a real, important and sensitive issue. In round one, others ask questions of fact and clarification. In a second round, listeners provide feedback.  Finally, the facilitator asks the presenter to say and write down their take-aways and the actions to which they are committed. Using this tool focuses more on facts, incents people to prepare more concise issue statements and engage others in substantive discussion. CEOs who took this home found it took the level of meeting up several notches. If you want to know more about this Vistage tool, leave your comment and email address.

A third is the roundtable exercise conducted each meeting that binds us together and keeps continuity in each other’s lives. In our group, I call it “Being in Each Other’s Movie.” It is simply revealing something about themselves that others might not know (a recent event or action or experience)  plus an activity outside of work in which they engaged with another in the room. As my behavior professor in business school said: “You will get a lot more done if you know the motivations and expectations of others in the room And it is harder to demonize someone whom you actually know.”

Finally, some CEOs have taken home an exercise called “Stickman” which accomplished the same growth of understanding others as individual whole people rather than occupants of a job. They have found this applicable in breaking down barriers and building better teams in sales and operations.

Leaders understandably tend to focus on the task at hand and the results. But leadership is about getting others to do what needs to be done, doing it eagerly and doing it well. That means leading the togetherness and motivation as well as the tasks and outcomes. Hugh performing leaders continually look for new tools for doing this. Membership in Vistage involves experience with such tools.

That’s my view. What’s yours?

Anyone watching the presidential campaign must wonder how the mind works just before a gaff. There certainly have been enough of them by both Republicans and Democrats. One hopes that a CEO has accumulated by experience far more knowledge than the politicians in their briefings (apparently their major source of learning).

What do CEOs think just before they make a remark to a large internal audience? an appearance on a tv show? How do they stave off most gaffs?

There are three approaches I have observed:

1. Make a positive response first (e.g., “That question is particularly relevant because…..”)

2. Ask a question before giving an answer (e.g., “Are you focusing particularly on _______?” or “Did you mean that narrowly the way you said it or more broadly?”; at a minimum, confirm your understanding of the question.

3. “I think about that question this way (re-define the question in a way that makes more sense to you)”

Such responses usually buy enough time for a thoughtful response. This also has good effect in business situations.

In public appearances, as a last resort, the politician’s response may be appropriate: provide a pre-defined answer to a similar question and move on.  Most CEOs have prepared for any such appearances, anticipating what will be asked and what they wish convey and staying on message.

That’s just my view. What’s yours?

If you have liked any of my prior posts, please tell your friends to sign up. If you don’t, please tell me and say more.