What Only The CEO Can Do
There is a set of four four specific tasks that only a CEO can do. They must be done by the leader and must be done well to enable strong performance, achieve desired results and improve the odds of winning for the entire organization.
In any business or enterprise — regardless of its mission, industry or size — the CEO is the link between the ‘inside’ (the organization) and the ‘outside’ (the customers. society, markets, economy, government, environment, technology, media, public opinion, etc.).
On the inside, there are mostly the costs of doing business — including all the activity and transactional costs associated with how employees actually do their work.
On the outside, there are results — markets and customers to serve, revenue and sales to generate, funding and investment to jump start and grow the enterprise.
Value is created on the outside. Profits come from sales. Competition is external.
If we were to examine what employees actually do, and how they really spend their energy and time, we would discover that most of it is spent internally. In my experience, even employees that have primarily external responsibilities (think sales, purchasing, government and investor relations) spend a surprising amount of time, often the majority of their time, working inside the organization rather than with their external customers.
Consequently, the CEO or leader ends up being the only person in the firm with significant contact with and knowledge of external players and external realities of the ‘outside’.
That is why the following work can only be done by the CEO:
- Understanding, defining and deciding the meaningful outside.
- Deciding what business to be in.
- Balancing the present with the future.
- Establishing standards and values.
We’ll examine each task our following set of articles. Tune in tomorrow to LeadingToWin.com to read the next article that examines the meaningful outside.
