{"id":388,"date":"2014-09-15T09:44:45","date_gmt":"2014-09-15T09:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/?p=388"},"modified":"2014-09-15T09:44:45","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T09:44:45","slug":"task-ce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/?p=388","title":{"rendered":"There&#8217;s Only One Task For Any CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/peterstromquist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/lightbulb-idea2-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-390\" src=\"http:\/\/peterstromquist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/lightbulb-idea2-1-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"lightbulb-idea2\" width=\"173\" height=\"173\" \/><\/a>I know many CEOs who believe they have four &#8216;audiences&#8217; for their concern: Wall Street, regulatory agencies, customers, and employees. (Usually in that order).<\/p>\n<p>I believe this to be misguided; I feel that if CEOs make their employees their only priority, all other corporate needs and accomplishments will fall in line.<\/p>\n<p>While many in business measure their &#8216;success&#8217; with assets personally acquired, or building financial stockpiles, I&#8217;ve always felt the true measure of success in my career is the number of employees who have left my employ and accomplished great things.<\/p>\n<p>Hardly a week goes by that this isn&#8217;t reinforced as I hear from former employees telling me what they learned while working with me, and how it changed their life.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m so proud of these people and happy for their success.<\/p>\n<p>How do corporate leaders embark on a path of\u00a0making employees the number one priority?<\/p>\n<p>There are some rather simple, and obvious ways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Respect for each and every employee, no matter their status or responsibility<\/li>\n<li>Regular personal interaction with employees at all levels<\/li>\n<li>Believing every employee is capable of achieving levels of success they&#8217;ve previously been told are out of reach<\/li>\n<li>Delegating and encouraging \u00a0management and department heads to empower employees to take initiative and make decisions<\/li>\n<li>Trusting your employees to make the right decisions<\/li>\n<li>Providing opportunities and access to tools that assist employee growth<\/li>\n<li>When an employee decides to move on, support and assist them with the transition<\/li>\n<li>Cultivating new managers and department heads from the inside; these are the building blocks for your growth and expansion<\/li>\n<li>Taking a holistic interest in your employees, being aware\u00a0of their life outside of work<\/li>\n<li>Leading by example \u2013 you have the big title, office, and pay. Doesn&#8217;t mean you can&#8217;t change a light bulb, empty your own trash can, or make the next pot of coffee<\/li>\n<li>Accepting that successes are the result of the team&#8217;s efforts, yet failures rest solely on your shoulders, and make sure the team knows that<\/li>\n<li>No-brainer: praise in public, criticize in private<\/li>\n<li>Always taking the long view in your decision making<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t couch the truth \u2013 when something happens in the company or marketplace that will mean substantial changes for or within the company, don&#8217;t tell the rank and file that \u201cno changes are anticipated\u201d when you know there will be some \u2013 or many<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My qualifications for making these pronouncements come from employing these methods in all size of companies, from start-ups to multinationals, all over the world, and seeing success come as a result of the practices, even under the most unlikely circumstances, such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Taking a division of a multinational that had never made a profit in eight decades of operation and having it profitable within six months<\/li>\n<li>Convincing the Chinese government to allow live, uncensored bilingual broadcasting for the first time in history<\/li>\n<li>Creating new products and services organically, at little or no cost, that went on to become big money makers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can achieve success beyond your own, your employees, your investors, or board members expectations \u2013 by starting on the path of top to bottom employee respect.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>CEO Consulting, Employee Morale<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know many CEOs who believe they have four &#8216;audiences&#8217; for their concern: Wall Street, regulatory agencies, customers, and employees. (Usually in that order). I believe this to be misguided; I feel that if CEOs make their employees their only priority, all other corporate needs and accomplishments will fall in line. While many in business&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/?p=388\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">There&#8217;s Only One Task For Any CEO<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,29,1],"tags":[878,1306],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}