By five o’clock, the CEO of a scaling company, around ninety people, had made what felt like forty decisions. A price for a small deal. A job title. Whether a customer’s request counted as an exception. Which of two dates to give a partner. None of them took long. All of them landed on the same desk.
At ten past five, the call that mattered arrived. Whether to open a second market this year, or hold off for two quarters. The leadership team had prepared it well. The CEO read the summary standing up, asked two good questions, and decided.
It was a reasonable decision. That is not the point.
What the day had already spent
Nothing about the 5 pm call was rushed. But it came last, after a day in which the CEO’s attention had been handed out in small pieces to whoever asked first. The strategic question got what was left.
A good call needs room around it. Time to be wrong in your own head first. Time to hear the objection properly, and to sleep on it. That room is the first thing a full day takes.
The order nobody chose
No one decided that small decisions should come before large ones. It happened because small questions are quick to ask and arrive all day, while the large ones can be scheduled, so they get scheduled into whatever remains. Over a year the pattern settles. The CEO is most available for the questions that need them least.
Two readings of the same day
From the CEO’s side, a day full of decisions looks like leadership. From the outside, the same day looks like a queue with the biggest item at the back.
The quality of a decision is partly set by everything that came before it.
Myrto Zehnder partners with CEOs and founders of scaling organisations on the structural architecture underneath recurring organisational problems.
The Eagle’s Perspective — myrtozehnder.com
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