From an Ex CEO: Why John Schnatter's comments about a 20 cents add on are laughable.

[happyslug]

53. Studies have shown, the better CEOs do almost no work.

The Key is setting up an organization that basically runs itself. The CEO coordinates the various parts, but most times once set up, the parts work together. Lets look at GM for example, does the CEO decide what model to build? Marketing does. Does he decide HOW the car is to be built? No. his engineering department does. Does, he decides how many cars are made? No that is up to distribution, based on how many are sold. Does he determine the pay of his union workers? No that is done by his personal department and the UAW (and for NON-union workers, set by the Personal Department based on input from the various other parts of the company). Does the CEO determine what to pay for material? No that is done by purchasing, based on what the factories making the cars need.

So what does the CEO do? First he makes sure the above interactions are going as smoothly as possible, and if not why not. The CEO does this by making sure he hire people who know what they are doing in their job AND can work with others. Another thing the CEO does is to watch the market, to make sure the system he is the head of can produce what the market wants, but again he is assisted in this by various parts of GM, from marketing to production to distribution to design.

Now, in smaller companies many of the above jobs the GM CEO hires people to do are done by the CEO, but the main thrust of the CEO is to make sure the system in working. That is his main function. Sometime the CEO may look into some detail of his business but only if it is important to the business as a whole (An example of this Stalin's decision to revert to bolt action rifles after the German Invasion, NOT that the bolt action were better, he was looking at how to produce the most rifles for the most men, once that was achieved he left the Red Army re-start work on going to an Automatic weapon).

My point is the better CEOs rarely makes rush decisions, generally because the Company they are heading is set up in such a way such decisions are very rare. Does Lordstown go to a Tripe shift? That is up to Lordstown and Sales, Sales pointing out it can sell more Cars if it had cars to sell, Lordstown to produce those cars (I bring this up for doing the 2008-2009 car slump, Lordstown was producing the Cobalt, the GM car with the best fuel mileage that sat 4, the rest of GM was cutting back, but Lordstown went to a triple shift, this was NOT decided by the CEO, but by sales working with distribution, Lordstown and other supplies).

Now, the CEO gets to decide what is built where, but often only after into from purchaser (Where parts and other materials used in the cars comes from), sales, distribution and other department have had their say (and often the decision is made by these departments acting together, with the CEO only resolving any disputes between them).

Thus the CEO rarely makes any decision, let alone rush decisions. A Good CEO set up a process that makes most decision itself, even most "rush decisions". What the CEO is concerned about is the general direction of the Company, seeing what sells and what does not, directing the company in ways to make money, but the day to day, or even month to month work done by others.