Scott Davis, @scottatlyzasoft, was nice enough to retweet my post Make Things Simple, which led me to his blog. His blog, Circumspecting: People, Tech and Business is a thoughtful combination of strategy, operations and tech.
His most recent post, Yo-Yo's Make the Best Leaders, talks about the need for the CEO to function at multiple levels, including operations. The American education system devotes little time to operations--that boring stuff like manufacturing, warehousing, logistics, sourcing, customer service, etc. Instead, we train future executives in branding, corporate culture and Wall Street dealmaking, to name just a few lower value-added activities.
I have consistently talked about the need for companies and especially the CEO to be customer focused. I learned this principle in the retail industry. Visiting stores allows you to see and meet customers face to face, observe how they shop and see first hand the customer reaction to merchandise. Stores also allow you to visit operations and observe inventory levels, outdated merchandise and store housekeeping. When I ran a retail company I spent 1-2 days every week visiting my stores and the competition. Wal-Mart executives do the same thing, every week.
If your business model involves widely disparate customers, then spend time every week in customer service. You will learn more about your own operations, the frequency of customer complaints and the image your company presents to the customer than any financial report will ever tell you. When I ran a telephone company, I would spend one day a week (usually two hours per day) in customer service. It was absolutely the most effective time I spent each day because I was able to learn first hand about the customers and the operations that served them.
So as Scott might say, "yo-yo between CEO stuff, the customers and operations". You will be a much more effective CEO.
Miami, FL