- What should the day of a CEO look like?
You know, I get asked this all the time,
ever since starting my companies at 17 years old.
You know, when I was first starting, it was kind of chaotic.
You know, where every day I woke up and
I just kind of worked on the most pressing issues
and then kept going and going and then,
you know, over the years, really when I was about 24
and I started a company called, Spheric Technologies,
and I had a big team, I had to change the way that I worked.
I had to start asking myself,
"What should I be doing with my day?
"What are the things that are important to me,
"that other people, that I need to work on
"but other people can support me on and help me?"
And that's where I came up with this framework.
I've talked to many, many CEO coaches.
I've read hundreds of books over the years
and what I want to share with you guys is
my framework for thinking about,
"What should the day of a CEO look like?"
The first thing is, every CEO out there,
every management team should start with the daily standup.
You know, some people call them huddles,
but to me, I took the idea from Agile Development.
It's a development process.
Daily standups.
No more than one to two minutes per person
and really it's just answering three questions:
One, what did you do yesterday?
Two, what are you doing today?
And then three, are you blocked or are you stuck?
Is there anything that you can't complete
that somebody else can help you with?
And that, to me, is the first,
that should happen first thing in the morning,
with your whole team, real quick, 15 minutes max.
And the key is to not make it turn into a meeting
where you're discussing all the different aspects.
You're just letting people voice yesterday, today and block,
and then, as a CEO, after the fact, if you'd like to,
you can kind of unblock those challenges or
follow with people specifically.
So that is the number one thing,
a daily standup meeting with your whole team.
Two, is making sure that 50% of your schedule is open.
Now, a lot of you guys hear me and you're like,
"There's no way, Dan, that I could possibly get
"50% of my schedule open."
Trust me, when I was building Spheric, I get it.
For two years, my calendar was 100 hours a week,
fully scheduled, working, talking to customers
and I didn't see, there was no possible way
that I could make it work.
But I'm gonna challenge you because I really think that
if you adopt that mindset and you ask yourself,
"50% of my calendar not scheduled",
you will start looking at opportunities to outsource,
to outtask, to have people support you,
to delegate, to hire new employees.
But really, you need to free up that time so you can
do the other aspects on this list.
So, the third thing I'm gonna share with you guys
that a CEO does every day is,
any major project that they have accountability to,
that they have to create, needs to be in their calendar,
and I can't tell you how important that is.
If you're working on a new marketing strategy
or sales process, or maybe a new HR program
to help kind of create core values for your teams.
Whatever the project may be, it has to be in your calendar.
If not, life will just take over.
You will be busy, you will never get it done.
And the business won't grow.
I mean, to me, that is, those projects
that should be in your calendar are the ones
that are really gonna have a material impact
on your business and your growth.
So, I'm gonna challenge you guys.
Make sure that: A, you keep first, the number two,
50% of your calendar open,
and then also with the rest of the time,
if you have major projects, schedule them in there,
and I do 90 minute chunks, if that helps you
kind of figure out the block time, I call it,
to get those projects done.
The fourth thing that you should be doing
every day as a CEO, to me it's really simple,
it's aligning, talking to your employees
and aligning their work with the purpose of the business.
You know, many times I've suggested to
a first-time entrepreneur is that they should be
spending a lot of their time sharing their story,
their why, their purpose of their business.
Most of the time.
You know, and they go,
"Well, why do I have to keep repeating myself?"
Trust me.
You know, people forget.
They get in these funks.
They don't understand why what they're working on
is going to be aligning to the bigger purpose.
And that's what you should be doing.
You should be going around to your team and saying,
"Hey, you know that interface you're designing right now,
"that's gonna allow us to do X, Y and Z
"and that's gonna allow us to achieve these big results
that we've all agreed upon."
So that, to me, is kind of the first thing that
in a business, everyday, the CEO should be working on,
is meeting with their team and really trying to
explain to them how their work, their specific work,
is going to have an impact on the purpose and
the mission and the vision of the business.
So that's number four.
Number five, and I got this from
so many amazing books I've read.
You know, a great example is Sam Walton from Walmart.
He pretty much spent four days a week
inside of his competitors' shops or talking with customers.
And then that one day, the Friday,
they would all come together and they would share
what they've learned with the rest of the team,
execute on those and then do the same thing the next week.
So number five is talking with your customers.
If you have not picked up the phone recently,
not to try to sell them, not to try to get feedback on
how well of a service you guys have been delivering,
but just talking to your customers,
asking them questions like,
"What are some of the big trends going on
"in your industry right now?
"Where do you see some of your biggest challenges
"and opportunities for growth?"
You know, really just trying to understand
where their business is because, to me,
that is where innovation lies.
That's where growth opportunities lie.
And that's where building an excellent business for you
by understanding their challenges and bringing those
into your business, and maybe offering solutions,
will really help you grow your business.
So, to me again, I wanna recap the five.
The five are very simple.
One, you need to make sure that you're doing daily standups.
Two, you need to ensure that 50% of your schedule is open
to allow you to do other strategic work.
Three, if you have major projects, make sure they're
scheduled in your calendar.
Four, talking to your customers, or to your team,
to make sure that the work they're working on
is aligned and you explain to them how these things
are aligned with the purpose of your business.
And then five, talking with your customers
and try and understand not only how good of a job
you guys have been doing for them,
but the strategy and the purpose for their business.
Because, to me, understanding where your customers are going
will give you some really clear indication on what things
you need to be working on.
So, I want to thank you guys for watching this video.
I want to ask you guys to please Like the video
and Comment, leave a comment below.
And let me know, what are you doing in your business today,
or what of the five things I talked about,
which one was the most ah-ha, that you're like,
"Man, I gotta work on that."
Leave a comment below, I'd love to hear from you.
I want to challenge you guys all to live a bigger business
and a bigger life and I'll see you next Monday.