Exercise! One thing you can be sure that is missing from not only a CEO's list but a lot of entrepreneurs. A lot of people may feel that exercise only robs them of precious time but conversely as pointed out, it keeps the mind fresh and sharp thereby increasing productivity.
Lincoln once said something along the lines of "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe".
"Act Like an Investor. At the end of each week, ask yourself the following question: Did our actions this past week increase value? What was the ROI on your time spent this past week? If you go 2 weeks in a row or 2 weeks in a month without a positive ROI on your time spent, you’re clearly doing the wrong things."
I feel like this is just good advice for life in general.
Part of me recoils at treating all of life in this way and I think it can be taken too far but at it's heart I think it's good advice.
Obviously quantifying life can be tricky, and it's not possible for every week to be fantastic, but the general principal of regularly assessing it to see if it can be tweaked or improved, and seeing if you're basically happy with it is a good one.
Not everything should be viewed as an investors decision. Passion and determination help to take decisions an investor wouldn't make. That is why you are CEO.
A lot of the guidance I find in posts like this reminds me of the book "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. His analytical approach to identifying an excellent CEO is regularly confirmed by posts like this one. I highly recommend it for new CEOs and people looking to understand some of underlying nuances and necessities of running a business.
Apparently, this seem like a no-brainer pieces of advice for everyone and anyone to take, but only those who have walked in these "shoes" can really know how difficult is to keep on smiling, loving everybody, how to be optimist and enthusiastic every single moment around the clock, specially when you see that you are doing everything right, everything by the book, you are following every single one of the 13 steps (even the one with the exercises) and you still have no ROI.
The truth is that a start up has to find it's own way, it has to pivot, to adjust, to ask for feedback and so on, until it has gotten some things right. There is no perfect receipt to having a successful start up - you just have to find your way.
The most important thing is missing, IMHO: Keep selling and finding the optimal customer acquisition strategy for your product/service. Without this, "pixel perfection" is a waste of time.
> Set the Tone. Everyone - your co-workers, your customers, your partners, your investors, the press, your Twitter and Facebook followers - takes their cues from you.
The one tweak I'd say to this one is to make it "Be aware that you set the tone".
The senior people in any organisation set the tone for it whether they're trying to or not. If it's not something they're actively doing then the tone goes either to their default (which may well be perfectly good if they're naturally inspiring and engaging) or to some level of disinterest or disengagement.
So for me setting the tone isn't something you can choose to do or not do - what you do get to pick is what the tone you're setting is.
Good call. That's actually what I meant, didn't realize what I was quoting. The awareness is so important- it's a lesson I always seem to be re-learning, because you don't realize how many different ways people are taking cues from you.
The most accessible examples are the industry "gurus" whose everyday lives and everyday mundane thoughts people seem to be so interested in. When they say "people look to a leader" they really mean it - they are looking at you whether or not you feel like you are actively leading at that moment.
hmmm ... i thought of giving some personal examples but was worried some people might take it as too much self promotion. Will think about that more for a future post.
You could temper the self-promotion with examples from friends or other people you admire. Either way, examples would have made each point much more concrete. Just consider it for the next one you write.
Great article.. One additional task for a CEO is getting out there and recruiting. A startup CEO should aim to get at least one meeting with an engineer and sell them on your product and vision. Like Mark Suster says ABR, Always be Recruiting.
