Taking a Fresh Look at Your Job

How can you become more efficient and effective in how you spend your time as a CEO/business owner? There is a drill we normally use as a step in exit planning strategies, but also can be used to increase the success and value of a business by taking a fresh look at the CEO/business owner’s job.

Here’s how it works. Look at your job in three distinct ways:

• Roles: What are your daily activities inside the business?
• Relationships: How and with whom do you interact?
• Knowledge: What special knowledge do you have about your business, customers and market?

Once compiled, we analyze how the roles, relationships and knowledge can and/or should be shared with subordinates. This self-analysis will help to highlight the more important value-building activities on which the CEO/Business Owner should focus, identify the low-return activities that can be handled by others within the organization, and develop a more robust senior layer of management.

For a more detailed description of this type of succession planning, see “Can Your Company Survive and Thrive Without You?”

- Michael Oleksak     2005