60-Minute CEO: Mastering Leadership an Hour at a Time

Chapter 5

Thinking … About What?

Chapter 3 made the argument that half of the Job at the Top is about thinking … thinking about the whole of your business.

But thinking about the whole of a business, rather than in the part-at-a-time Newtonian way, is such a broad assignment that most people have a hard time even getting started. Over twenty-five years my firm, The Cross Partnership, has observed that most CEOs spend 95 to 100 percent of their time doing things other than disciplined thinking about the whole of their businesses. Yet, that’s what it takes to do the job: time spent alone, undistracted by phones, e-mail, or conversation, for periods ...