A CEO Only Does Three Things: Finding Your Focus in the C-Suite by Trey Taylor

Author:Trey Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2020-10-09T20:11:42+00:00

1

Do the Work

Daily to Weekly

Product

Physical Tools

Perceptual/Concrete

Worker

In Jaques’s world, every organization struggles with the issue of having its People tasked at the wrong level. In fact, his research suggested that as many as 65 percent of People were in the wrong position. This is frustrating for the both the employee and the employer and is the genesis of “burnout,” another term coined by Jaques. Preventing burnout by designing positions according to the level of work required, then filling them with People whose time horizons were a perfect fit, was not just good business for Jaques, it was a moral act. CEOs who understand Jaques and his philosophy have a competitive advantage over those who simply hire People for their personalities and experience and hope for the best.

Consider this: Michael Jordan is a legendary basketball player but had a mediocre professional baseball career. If his athletic career were judged solely on his baseball ability, it would be forgettable. That’s ridiculous, of course, because even nonbasketball fans know that Jordan was a basketball icon. Even today, kids who never saw him play for the Chicago Bulls wear his jersey.

In your company today, or perhaps in the round of interviews you have scheduled next week, you could have a Michael Jordan in your midst—but he or she might be playing the wrong sport. When we ignore levels of work, we may unknowingly leave an all-star on the bench.

Put another way, you wouldn’t ask your receptionist to fill in for twelve weeks while your Vice President of Manufacturing is out on maternity leave. Not only would she be ill-prepared for the job, she would also need constant feedback, evaluation, and assurance—all of which would take away productive time from another employee without improving her skillset. In the end, she would fail, and such failure would have a lasting impact on her “I Am” dimension. Jaques would place the blame for this squarely on the CEO’s shoulders.

The converse is also true. Suppose you take the VP and have her answer the phones and greet clients for twelve weeks. Yes, she could figure out the mechanics of the position, but how long would it take for her to become bored and start to unnecessarily re-engineer aspects of the job? How much strife and aggravation would this create?

Think about it. If Jaques is right and over half of your team members could be in the wrong roles, how much success are you leaving on the table every year? If you have even 25 percent of your Michael Jordans playing baseball, that’s a tragedy in terms of their individual potential and the potential of your business. Jaques consulted with private companies large and small, as well as with the United States military and international charities. All of his research supported this conclusion: People are happier and more productive in roles that fit their time horizons.

The power of understanding this model cannot be overstated. As CEOs

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