Dear CEO, show me your calendar and I’ll tell you how customer-centric your company is.
by Tijs Besieux, PhD
Long-term performance comes from aligning your resources with what your most valuable customers actually need. But that only happens when CEOs talk directly with customers and see, firsthand, what it's like to be on the other end of their product or service.
Yet, according to one HBR study, CEOs spend just 3% of their time with customers. That's under two hours a week, despite averaging 62.5-hour workweeks!
Every employee looks up to decide where to spend their time. If CEOs don't visibly spend time with customers, employees won't either. And that means missed chances to innovate on their behalf.
The most successful customer-first leaders I've worked with schedule recurring "non-negotiable" time with customers on their calendars. One CEO I know leads a facilities company with +25 thousand employees. He spends every Friday working in a customer-facing team. In doing so, he gets to observe and talk directly with customers while also receiving feedback from those customer-facing teams on friction points that stand in the way of creating value for customers.
Perhaps blocking a few slots in your calendar over the coming weeks to spend time with valuable customers can make all the difference. Show up, observe, and watch the magic unfold as these insights clarify how you should lead the company to focus on customer value.
The CEO calendar: CEOs spend as little as 3% of their time with customers.