How should senior executives be spending their time? Where do they have the greatest impact?

Hi Dave,

Great question! And one in an area that I'm passionate about! :)

I'll take a crack at this one by describing what I have experienced to be the biggest boost in business performance, i.e. increased sales, margins, profits, productivity, innovation, customer satisfaction, employee motivation/satisfaction, etc.

So without further ado, the executive should spend be spending time on:

1. getting to know the customer(s) very well, identifying their visible and dormant needs, long term business strategies/goals, etc
2. set the vision and long term strategy towards making their customer(s) successful
3. organizing and aligning the entire company (sales, marketing, operations, supply chain, services, sourcing, etc) and it's long term strategy with the customer(s) business strategies/goals, visible and dormant needs etc.
4. Assessing business performance by customers experiencing the "wow" factor, NOT financial targets
5. Wash, rinse, repeat......

Usually this means abandoning department goals, working in silos, sales quotas, short term financial targets, etc. for small, streamlined, cross-functional teams (members from sales, marketing, operations, supply chain, services, sourcing, etc) working closely with the customer(s), with sales people involved on a CONTINUOUS basis (not just up until the sale is made) to assess that value has been created and what was promised/expected is delivered or even surpassed, etc.

It may be shocking to many people, but focusing on the customer rather than short term financial targets almost always leads to increased sales, profits and overall business performance, even in declining markets.

My humble 2 cents.

I view the senior management as the vision of the company -- or the compass. And they are the suppliers to have the resources to get this vision accomplished. But often I have found that the vision, the path, are not always explained fully and often the compass isn't allowed to be looked at. meaning how is it going?

I'm being very serious and not being smart. Confussion and frustrations often come from inadequate communication.

I think senior management should see the vision, explain the vision, support the vision and let the frointline get it done. This will also include training for the frontline manager to keep things on track and engage employees while maintaining the team.

Excellent question, Dave.

As I reflect over my years in business, I can offer a response from two points of view. Years ago as a “frontline” person (to use Liz Cosline’s nomenclature), there was always some level of trepidation when senior management came to visit “the trenches”. You didn’t know what to expect – anything from a glare, to no reaction, to a “shaking down”. However, every once in a while, a senior executive would arrive who took a different approach – that of being a coach/mentor. They would share their wisdom of how to improve performance by guiding and educating. And when they left, you felt special, invigorated, and even more determined to spend whatever energy was required to ensure you did not let them down. They were exercising leadership.

Now, many years later and at their end of the management continuum, I see a senior executive’s role to have a number of attributes. One is customer-focused, ensuring key accounts are proceeding along the sales process in a timely manner by addressing customer concerns. One is profit-focused, ensuring financial targets are being met. One is management-focused, ensuring employees are well-versed in the priorities of your company. But another, equally important, is coaching-focused. Taking aside lower and middle level personnel, giving them quality time to provide encouragement, removing obstacles to their success, and providing mentoring to their career success will pay dividends in both the short-term and long-term. A well-educated work force is important. But a well-educated and motivated workforce is even better.

Senior management may have to provide the top-down vision for the company, but they should equally provide bottom-up support for employees to ensure they have the best opportunity to succeed. Their success will translate into success for the company.

Senior executives should be putting their time and talents to the highest best use, just like everyone should. If a very good job has been done hiring the team, senior execs should be allowing the team to do the job.

A senior exec is not most effective when performing tasks and rubbing shoulders which can and should be performed and rubbed by lower level employees. Therefore, a senior exec should ask "What am I going to accomplish by meeting this customer?" If the relationship will honestly be strengthened or grown, great. But if the truthful answer is "nothing", this is obviously not an effective move for the exec. Similarly, the exec should ask "Am I the lowest level employee qualified to perform this task?" If no, push the task down.

Questioning oneself like this is revealing. Those tasks and meetings left on the plate after doing so are likely the most effective use of the exec and their time. These often include courting high profile customer potential, forging inter-corporate alliances, providing motivational encouragement to the rank and file, and maintaining interdepartmental continuity, among other things.

Together, let's put the fun back into work!
Belldon Colme
belldoncolme@gmail.com

Dog with a bone, eh Dave? ;-)

Actually, I was glad to see this here today. It will be interesting to see this unfold and gain other perspectives.

Just a thought... might be helpful to clarify whether you're asking about "senior execs" meaning C-Level (since this is in the Sales Management category, perhaps CSO?) or senior sales leaders, such as a VP of Sales, who also have directors and possibly frontline managers in the hierarchy, between them and their frontline sales reps.

After a few good clarifcations, we ended in violent agreement on your blog, so I won't repeat here but will reference it for any others who might want to see some background discussion. Hope that's okay: http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com/maximizing-sales-management-impact/

It is a two part question and best answered that way.

Part 1: How should senior executives be spending their time?
A lot has been written on this, and the one thing that most agree on is
“It depends on their Business.”

Management By Walking About seems to work for some.
Customer Focus works for others.
Some are most effective working through a Staff Team and having little Line Contact.
It depends.

Personally, from 40 years observing Senior Executives a few things stand out.
You can’t “Lead” from the back,
you can’t “Inspire” without a vision or goal,
and you can’t “Succeed” without taking Tough Decisions.
Were I to package this I would write a book almost like
Ken Blanchard’s "Leading at a Higher Level."
An insightful and thoroughly Modern Approach to Leadership.

Part 2: Where do they have the greatest impact?
I don’t think they are best served by too much time in the field. They should take part in Customer Engagement; know their Product and their Market including their Competition.
Senior Executives would do best Managing, Leading and especially Coaching
their direct reports i.e. Managers.

I also believe that some C level Executives are NOT suited to Customer Visits!
http://brianmaciver.blogspot.com/2010/08/should-top-execs-visit-customers.html

One of the big problems with any C level executive is the tendency to play whack a mole with issues, in short be overwhelmed by the tactical and forget the strategic. Bill Gates used to carve out several weeks each period to just go off on a retreat, and look at the big picture and he became the richest guy in the world. From personal career goals, which need to be reset from time to time, to assuring department continuity and staff development, to thinking about what the competitive, environmental, and technological world will be outside of a short term planning horizon these things are critical to long term personal, professional, and company success. The collapse of the housing market and automotive companies have been repeatedly the result of tactical decisions that didn’t take into account changing conditions or anticipate clearly identifiable trends.

For a sales executive assuring the products being built conform to what the market will want, assuring the skills of his organization anticipate future requirements, and making sure he or she are up to date which coming regulatory, competitive, and customer issues. For a CFO anticipating future funding needs, changes in the cost of capital, exchange rate fluctuations (for multi-nationals), and for the CEO well they are supposed to own the long term vision so they need to constantly check to make sure it is still viable. Even operations needs to anticipate changes in ecosystem costs and technologies, regional labor advantages and anticipated supply chain issues to optimize future locations and anticipate major change.

In a world often defined by companies who anticipate and drive the future we generally have executives who don’t have the time to model it. That, I think, should be corrected.

Senior Executives are in sales. In our business sales is not signing contracts, it is strategic alliances, it is Business Development, it is developing linkages, partners, expanding contacts influential, finding better ways to fulfill the wants and needs of our customers and prospects...enlightened self interests.
How would you articulate a plan for this?
JM

An old German Leadership Idiom: "Everywhere and Nowhere"

Everywhere...
...where the top clients are, new prospects, inbound calls, email inquiries, with the exec team and the CEO, on conferences and lately of course in the social web to expand reach and depth, visibility and influence

Nowhere...
...active in the closing of the big elephants or the little deal, nowhere leading presentations or meetings, nowhere deciding prices or offers....

A senior exec should try to get as close as possible to 100% leading the team and 0% executing what needs to get done. Every % off of that means less qualified team members, less opportunity of leverage, less time to lead.

My 2 cents

Senior executives should be spending their time on Profits - how much money the company made. Is profit increasing, decreasing or it it the same. That should be their question 24/7.
and they should have the answer 24/7.

Senior executives should have the greatest impact in relationship building - customer relationship as well as staff/employee relationship. If the staff isn't happy, rest assured they will pass that unhappiness on to the customers. So, there should be a staff meeting every morning to set the tone and daily feedback from both the customer and staff.

Never let'm see ya sweat...

For starters, 'senior executives' may be too broad a rubric. Even when defined within a sales context, there is a lot of room for job descriptions and responsibilities. Is the person in a primary leadership role? Are they in senior management with significant team management and HR responsibilities? Are they expected to make sales at all? At any level?

Generally I agree with Belldon. If the executive in question has significant management responsibilities, by definition her/his focus should primarily be on maximizing the strengths and performance of team members and the team as a whole. With rare exception, their hands should no longer be on the tools.

The second issue alluded to is about 'top performers', whether those are team members or customers. That one is simpler: ignore the Pareto distribution in your environment at your peril. The minority of performers/contributors who yield the majority of your returns are not only whom executives should be paying the most attention to, but the entire organization should as well.

Unless you have some kind of rescue complex, deliberately spending time on that long-tail of non performers in your environment is a sure way to grind the life out of anyone, executive or not.