By “most CEO’s” I don’t mean most of the people who have CEO on their business card; not those in charge of very large, public companies. Most of us run companies with less than 100 people. In fact, 50% of the American work force works for companies under 50 employees. That’s a lot of CEOs.

And by “Nothing All Day”, I don’t mean you’re lazy or hanging out at the beach playing angry birds. What I mean is that the stuff you do all day is not, for the most part “CEO work”. It’s usually what is done in a large company by sales people, or production folks or HR or accounting.

There are 2 reasons for this.

CEO work is Important but not Urgent.

This is a trap. The more time you spend on important work, the less often emergencies pop up. If you don’t force yourself to block out time for the non-urgent then you’ll always be chasing your tail.

CEO work is not required full time.

This is true for all but the very largest companies. Think of CEO as a function not a job. Like cleaning your house. It’s a function that needs to be done, but you don’t need a full time janitorial staff. So there’s nothing wrong with you doing sales, solving production problems, or any of that others stuff. In fact there’s a lot that’s right with it.

What you shouldn’t do is neglect the CEO functions your company needs because they are not urgent.

CEO as Orchestra Conductor

Think of that metaphor. The conductor makes none of the music. A small band (4 or 5 people) doesn’t need a conductor. Everyone plays an instrument – but someone chooses what song to do next, and when to schedule rehearsal. You’re probably mid-way between the two. You are the conductor but you also play an instrument (or several).

Takeaways:

• Let everyone know when you speak as an instrument player or as conductor
• Schedule time to function as the conductor or the whole orchestra will get out of time.