Productivity from the People

By Kevin Meyer

Interesting article by Kimberly Weisul in BNet describing a study on where CEOs really spend their time.  As you'd probably suspect, the vast majority is spent in meetings.

As you might suspect, CEO’s go to meetings. A lot.

  • Some 60% of CEO time was taken up in meetings
  • CEOs spent 25% of their time on phone calls and at public events
  • Only 15% of CEO time was spent working alone.

Time is also split between insiders and outsiders.

On average:

  • CEOs spent 42% of their time with insiders-other employees
  • CEOs spent 25% of their time in groups that included both insiders, such as employees, and outsiders, such as suppliers.
  • CEOs spent 16% of their time as the only company representative with one or more outsiders.
  • Among insiders, the finance department got the most time, or an  average of 8.6 hours per week. Human resources got the least CEO time,  or 5.5 hours per week.
  • Among outsiders, consultants dominate CEO time, getting an average  of 4.7 hours per week. Suppliers get the least attention, or only 1.3  hours per week.

But here's the interesting data:

As CEOs worked more hours, those extra hours went to meetings with people inside the company, so the hardest-working CEOs spent more time with their own people.  Time spent with insiders seemed to improve firm performance, while time spent with outsiders didn’t seem to make much difference.

A 1% increase in the amount of hours a CEO spent with his or her own people correlated to increase in [firm] productivity of 2.12%.

The power of realizing there's a brain attached to the hands of your team, and tapping into that creativity, knowledge, and experiences.

Works every time.