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.