What to Ask the Person in the Mirror

grew up in a professional services firm. We identified attracting, retaining, and developing superb talent as a critical priority. As a junior person, I was enormously impressed that very senior leaders of the firm were willing to interview candidates and attend recruiting events on a regular basis. I learned from their example that there wasn’t anything more important than recruiting and developing talent.

Strategic planning
Client contact (including written, face-to-face, and phone) Other sales and marketing
Interactions with investors and board members Interactions with media
Supervision of direct reports (including coaching, mentoring, and reviews)
Management by walking around (the office or the manufacturing floor)
Competitive analysis
Recruitment
Innovation (product, process, or other)
Communications/interactions with employees (meetings, speeches, etc.)
Budgeting
Reviewing expenses, including looking at travel and expense reports
Scheduling yourself
Other administrative matters

artly as a result of our trip, he came to appreciate that each country in the Asia Pacific region was different from the others, and certainly different from the United States. Clearly, from country to country, cultures differed, customer needs differed, hiring practices differed, and so on. Unfortunately, the company was ignoring these differences and as a result was failing to effectively adapt to them

Every function, business unit, and geographic region has its own unique characteristics. While a company should have a core vision and shared key priorities, each unit should adapt the vision and priorities to fit its particular role in the company’s success

• Attracting, retaining, and developing the best people. How much time should the CEO spend on recruiting and coaching? This priority also involves initiatives to target and hire the level of quality and type of person necessary to staff the key business units of the firm, given the aspirations of those business units. This might also involve an initiative to train entry-level people, as well as key management professionals. (Starting several decades ago, General Electric has made this a critical priority, establishing and nurturing its Crotonville training center to help accomplish this goal.7) Finally, an initiative to coach and mentor key staff might be a top priority for a company highly dependent on key talent

• Pricing. Are we the low-priced or premium-priced entry? This has substantial implications for our channels of distribution, product quality, degree of innovation, and so forth. If we intend to be low priced, priorities need to be developed to drive down product cost. If we intend to be premium priced, initiatives might include taking steps to develop our own channel of distribution in order to better control the customer experience—just as Apple did in 2001 by creating its own chain of retail stores

• Customer relationships and service. To achieve our goals, how strong must we be at product development as well as building client relationships? How critical are relationships to this sell? How critical is understanding and providing solutions to customer needs? Are we a product company or a client solutions company—or both? What is our distinctive competence—combining various products to solve problems or creating a single product line that fills a specific need as part of a broader set of solutions? Priorities here might include initiatives for recruiting a certain caliber of salesperson, organizing the sales force, and realigning compensation. As we’ll discuss in the next chapter, these priorities will also dictate how much time the CEO spends with clients

• Innovation/new product development. We want to be superb at developing new products and services. We are willing to allocate funds, as well as a material amount of human capital, to enhance our ability to innovate. The CEO and senior leadership are willing to make sacrifices, contribute people resources as appropriate, and communicate that this is a critical function within the company. Metrics will be developed that measure “success” in this area. This priority will affect decisions regarding key hires, how innovation will be organized (i.e., separated from, or integrated with, other functions), and how innovation will be rewarded. In addition, leadership will have to determine what kind of culture will best foster development of innovation. Also, leadership will need to determine the role of all company employees in this priority

Priorities inherently involve choices. You have only twenty-four hours in a day, and you have only a finite amount of human and financial capital. As a result, the development of key priorities takes a meaningful amount of thought and reflection. It is easy to develop a list of fifteen to twenty priorities, but I would argue that this is the same as having no priorities. Human beings typically can perform at a high level only if they focus their efforts, and the greater the number of priorities you have, the harder it becomes to focus. A long list means that you’re avoiding the tough choices.