Chief Executive Officer or Chief Everything Officer? What kind of CEO are you? 

I can’t get enough of sports. My wife rolls her eyes at me consistently as she wants to watch a new show together, but it’s playoffs for baseball, basketball, football...whatever! The scheduling of major sporting events is masterful as it’s nearly year round. I can’t help it...I LOVE IT!

As I’ve watched sports over the years, there’s one phrase that’s consistently spoken about young players. He’s just trying to do too much. I was watching a game with Young Quarterback, Daniel Jones of the New York Giants playing. Over and over he would make amazing plays, but then he would set his team back when he, “Tried to do too much.”

Announcers use this term so much, because for young athletes this paralyzes their teams. They realize that you can have all the talent in the world, and STILL not be able to do it all.

I don’t think it’s any different in the business world. In fact, it’s no different at all!

I was reading a great article the other day about how small business has changed over the past 25 years. It spoke of this evolution of the business owner and how they have moved from the CEO meaning the Chief Executive Officer...to CEO as Chief Everything Officer. It’s a subtle change, but one that dictates the entire existence of your business.

Just like in sports, young business owners are so particular that they have to have their hand in every piece of the business instead of training and trusting their employees to get the job done. Where does it lead? To underperformance every single time!

Why? Because you can’t do it all and scale your business. You have to trust people to do the job you hired them to do. And if you can’t, why pay them to do a job in the first place? It’s robbing you of profitability if you’re both trying to do the job.

So, where does this lead us?

If you look up the definition of executive in the dictionary it has two definitions I love…

1. Having the power to put plans, actions or laws into effect.

1. a person with senior managerial responsibility in an organization

You have to do both of these as the executive. You have to become the manager of the organization and put plans and actions into effect. You don’t have to do it all yourself, but you have to find a way to effectively train your team to do it the way you would do it, so you can free yourself up to do the things ONLY YOU can do.

It’s doable...in fact, we’re coaching businesses every day that are doing just this. Building the systems and processes in their business to free their employees up to do the job they were hired to do.

Then, and only then, can you go from the Chief Everything Officer who “tries to do too much,” to the CEO that your business needs.

Have a great week everyone!