This winter, I surveyed nearly 100 CEOs from a wide variety of companies—large and small, multiple industries—about their feelings of overwhelm due to the staggering demands on their time. I wanted to see if there was anything to learn from how they dealt with their managerial burdens.
I found that there were, in fact, lessons to be learned. CEOs that embraced lean principles felt significantly less overwhelm than “typical” CEOs despite the fact that they had less support staff.
It became clear that typical CEOs dealt with symptoms, while lean thinking CEOs addressed root causes of the overwhelm. Typical CEOs relied on standard countermeasures such as time management training and hiring more support staff. Lean thinking CEOs examined the organizational systems and maladaption that created the overwhelm in the first place and fixed those with leader standard work, daily management systems, etc.
I’ll be making a series of short videos following up on these findings. In the meantime, check out the full report here.