Social CEO

I have always wanted to do this research. I was glad to see that someone else did it — how CEOs spend their time. Over the many years that I have been involved in understanding and studying CEOs, I have been asked for whatever information I have on how CEOs spend their day and particularly how they gather information. Many of our clients want to better understand where they are and what they do all day. In addition, I have always maintained that employees wonder too. If you asked employees, what their CEO does all day, most would not have the foggiest idea. Many people, in fact, think that CEOs spend their days counting money.

So the research by a team of academics from the London School of Economics and Harvard Business School set out to answer the question of what the boss is doing most of the time. Some of the findings are discussed in today’s WSJ. The Executive Time Project, as it is dubbed, found that this is how the average CEO’s 55 hour work week breaks out. Interestingly, they had CEOs’ assistants fill out the diaries to gather the information.

• 18 hours in meetings
• 20 hours in miscellaneous (travel, exercise, personal appointments, etc)
• 6 hours working alone
• 5 hours in business meals
• 2 hours in public events
• 2 hours on conference calls
• 2 hours on phone calls

That equates to the following over a year (figuring 50 weeks with 2 weeks off for vacation):

• 900 hours in meetings per year
• 1,000 hours in miscellaneous (travel, exercise, personal appointments, etc)
• 300 hours working alone
• 250 hours in business meals
• 100 hours in public events
• 100 hours on conference calls
• 100 hours on phone calls

Obviously, they spend a LOT of time in meetings and probably traveling. Again, some of the questions I would like answered has to do with how much time these captains of industry spend using social media or monitoring what is being said about their companies online. Although there is mention in the article about a CEO who also uses his time texting, instant messaging and video chatting, the time spent being “social” was not broken out.  How many are Social CEOs? Will have to investigate if they were able to isolate that piece of information but doubt it.

Today I was reading this article on there being no women on Facebook’s board.  Only seven men. And many of Facebook’s users are apparently women. Although I had heard this before, it was quite stunning to me considering their impending IPO.

And I was also reading an article on young CEOs in the WSJ at the start of the week and noticed that the featured CEOs were all men.  

Perhaps I am missing something but where are all the women or at least a few women of them or at least one? Is it me or is anyone else concerned about this? If you want to learn why women are important to business success and reputation, take a look at the special report from The Economist…..amen.

Chris Perry (@cperry248) who is our digital communications president, wrote this really good post on Forbes about social CEOs. I am taking the liberty of repeating his 5 must-dos for CEOs wanting to get social or even considering it.

I would probably add one more and that is to find yourself a buddy who can read your Tweets as a sounding board when you first get started. I think that that second opinions can save oneself from having a red face and worth the try until you feel comfortable enough to try it alone.  And maybe it’s worth having a buddy just as good practice when it comes to Tweeting or even Facebook.  They might not be good golfing buddies but hey, this is a new age. Take his advice. It is seriously good.

Here they are…..straight from Chris.

Realize you shine bright in social mediums.

Social media participation is a public appearance where everything is on the record. Assume that comments will be picked up by the press as well as examined closely by your customers, staff and others watching your company. Speak and act accordingly.

Recognize your role as Chief Narrator.

Social platforms like Twitter aren’t a sounding board for a CEOs innermost thoughts; they’re an extension of other modes of communication you use as the lead executive of your organization. There’s great opportunity to share thoughts on your company or industry issues that get amplified through networks that reach employees, investors, customers and the press. As with existing communications efforts have a plan in place as you engage.

Anticipate social remarks being a part of a permanent public record.

Avoid posting or tweeting on topics that you would never discuss aloud in a public forum. Badmouthing competitors, going too deep into personal affairs or speaking about divisive issues is not the way to go. Don’t be gun-shy when engaging online, but anticipate that what you say will generate the same reaction as if it were published in the press.

Don’t court controversy if you can’t take the heat.

Opinions on relevant industry issues and current events that affect your business are fine. But steer clear of statements that might be controversial – unless you want to be at the center of the storm. Off the cuff remarks can have a massive ripple effect to be managed your staff, PR team and others tied to the issue after the fact. Pause for a moment in private before you go public.

Despite the inherent risks embrace your humanity.

Words of caution don’t mean you can’t let your personality shine through. In fact, this is one of the best ways CEOs can engage on a deeper, more human level with stakeholders. Personal insights into what it’s like to lead an organization show authenticity. Just remember that there are limits to what’s appropriate to share.

Any leader looking to engage through social media can harness the power, or suffer from the peril, of the medium. While it provides a forum for new interaction, new communications policies have similarities to traditional media guidelines.

Keeping that in mind will help you participate in ways that adds value, not headaches, to your organization.

The new year is fast coming up. I put together my thoughts on reputation trends to expect in 2012. It is on the HuffingtonPost site.  Take a look and let me know what you think. Happy pre-Xmas day.

I just read this wonderful interview with Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Technologies. He has written a book titled Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Mnanagement Upside Down.  And that he does. The reputation of employees seems to be gaining more steam lately. More CEOs are asking how to engage employees better and more creatively and harness their advocacy. Nayar’s strategies and tactics are compelling — not only are detailed financial performance delivered directly to employee desktops but all (ALL) employee appraisals or performance reviews are posted on HCL’s internal website for all to see. And get this, this includes the CEO’s review. His theory is that he too can learn from direct feedback.

The CEO seems very plugged into the employee component of the value equation. Here are a few things that really stood out to me. He must have a fine reputation among his employees to bear his soul so publicly and turn everything on its head. There are other good examples in the article so I recommend you read it. And here’s to all those dancing CEO bloggers out there!

“We also looked for symbolic ways to be a model of openness. One thing I did was publicly dance in front of all my employees. This was to remove the halo that a CEO has around his head. Meaningful conversation happens after you have set the stage in this way, after you make clear that you are as open as anyone else — crazy but effective.

I started writing a blog called “You and I,” in which I encouraged employees to ask me questions in the open. The only rule I made was that when you ask the question, it must have your name attached. All 60,000 employees should see your question and my answer. At first, I was depressed by the result, because I mostly received negative questions that made HCL look bad. People said things like, “Vineet, I don’t accept what you’re saying.” Or, “You lack vision; you haven’t articulated what the company’s size and scale will be in 2010.”

So I held an open house with a group of employees. “I’m feeling pretty bad,” I said. “Nobody is saying what is positive about our company. Do you think I’ve unlocked a genie that is spreading demotivation?”

Their answer was interesting. They said it is good to wash dirty linen in public, in this case on the blog, because it builds trust. There are no rumors. We discuss everything openly and honestly. We don’t always have solutions to problems, but at least we expose them. Out of that, I began to share the financial numbers and give my perspectives, and the tenor of the blog comments began to change.”

As I mentioned in my WSJ Europe post on tips on defending your digital reputation, video has taken off and is an excellent means of communications and telling your business narrative for CEOs. Especially for getting CEOs comfortable with social media in general. As I quoted in the article, 75% of Internet traffic will be video this year. In our research on Socializing Your CEO, we talk about the benefits of using video for your CEO, particularly the ones who are wary of too much attention and visibility.

Therefore I nodded to myself when I read about the major expansion of the WSJ’s video unit. Now it is producing 3 1/2 hours of live daily programming. I did not realize that the Journal produces more live video than other newspapers in the US. I think we will be seeing a WSJ business network soon that rivals CNBC (who they partner with) and Fox (their parent company’s network).  Will be interesting to watch and as I said, a good opportunity for CEOs as well. How much trouble can you get in three minutes live?

    Twitterologies. Is there such a word? I doubt it.  The CEO of Vodacom, Pieter Uys, apologized for outages via Twitter (@uyspj). Despite the inconvenience to Vodacom subscribers, the CEO is getting good marks for his simple apology. While it was happening, Uys was tweeting to customers about what he could do for them and kept in continuous contact. He tweeted the following:

“I do care for every one of our customers. What happened today was not acceptable. I’ll work hard to make you smile again.”

“Words can’t express how sorry I am about today’s problem. Flat out working at making sure all is 100%. Pieter.”

“At the network switch with the engineers. All looks OK now. If you still have a problem, please switch phone off and on.”

Fairly simple way to tell your customers you care. And that you are there. Helps to keep your company reputation intact.

If you regularly read my blog and know our work on Socializing Your CEO, you know that I follow social CEOs or other executives. Well, this story was not what I was thinking about when we first starting calling for more CEOs to use online technology.

An article on how CIOs need to get a seat at the table and boost their reputational status within the organization appeared in the WSJ this week. I read it on a plane but left myself a message to post about it  (are CIOs really second-class citizens in the C-suite?).  I am always interested in who is sitting at the table with the CEO and have over the years been particularly interested in the role of CCOs — Chief Communications Officers — and how they are increasingly sitting at that table as crises soar and reputations tumble. So naturally, this drew my attention. 

 As I went to find the article online, I stumbled upon another WSJ blog post about the article which had this quote or two from Brian Halligan, chief executive of Hubspot, who spoke at a panel by MIT’s CIO Symposium on the role of the CIO:

 ”Mr. Halligan also said CIOs are the logical choice to help chief executives master new communication tools like blogging, Facebook and Twitter. Many chief executives are either uncomfortable using those media, or hire professionals to stand in for them: Either way, their audiences can sense the lack of spontaneity. CIOs can help their CEOs “have a more authentic relationship with the market and vendors,” he said.

Since I have been carefully monitoring how CEOs become more social, I admit that I had not thought about this in the same way. In my world of communications, I think that CCOs are the natural teacher for showing CEOs how to use social media and video to communicate deep within the organization and to customers and other important stakeholders. I liked Halligan’s statement about how being more social might change perceptions of CEOs as stodgy, risk-adverse and uncommunicative. He is probably right.

Related to this topic, it is probably not a good idea to hire professionals to stand in for CEOs although I don’t doubt that it is done. CEO voices are hard to imitate and employees should be fairly adept at noticing counterfeit CEO-speak. So I would advise that if you are getting your CEO to blog (it does not have to be too often as we advise in our research) to get to know people and let them get to know the CEO, get them to do it themselves.

 My colleague in Asia just sent me a link to the blog of the Prime Minister of Japan. Mr. Naoto Kan’s blog had been ongoing but after the triple disaster of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant problems, he stopped blogging for good reason.  He has now just begun. Since I am always interested in how leaders communicate and how CEOs or other leaders are using social media, this was a good find. The theme of his blog is Looking Squarely at the Future (a good title)  and the blog says that he does all his blogging himself.  There is an English version which is translated from the Japanese. There are also videos of the Prime Minister on TV or at different events so it is a true multi-media platform. I definitely intend to follow it because hearing from the Prime Minister as he leads his country through this cataclysmic time will be worth my time.

Below is from Mr. Kan’s April 13th post:

Since the Great East Japan Earthquake struck, I have held back from sending out my thoughts through my blog. This was to avoid confusion amidst the ongoing flurry of large amounts of information, while I dedicated myself entirely to responses to the disaster.  With a tense situation continuing even now, a month since the disaster toward the future while I will continue to devote my energies to responses to the earthquake disaster and the nuclear accidents, I will resume blogging little by little.