The CEO Matters Newsletter (Edition 7)

We've got six pages for you in this edition:

Page 1: CEO Spotlight - The CEOs of 2023

Page 2: Reading - Know What Matters by Ron Shaich

Page 3: Leadership - Measure What Matters

Page 4: CEO Well-Being - Prioritize Your Health

Page 5: Quotes

Page 6: And One More Thing - Ferrari The Movie

Page 1: CEO Spotlight- The CEOs of 2023

There is a new kid on the block, Sam Altman. Time Magazine named Altman "CEO of the Year". The CNN Business gave the same honor to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. And it was Nadella who essentially kept Altman at the helm of Open AI.

Altman joins the ranks of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos for not only creating spectacular wealth, but more importantly for changing the world by the courage of their vision and their commitment to make it a reality.

In the year of AI, several other CEOs made the "most notable" list being carried along by the AI current including Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and Marc Benioff, Salesforce.

On the flip side, others didn't fare so well. Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion and proved that he can be just as stupid as he is brilliant. Greg Becker, CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, nearly brought the entire US financial system down. And Bob Iger, one of my favorite CEOs, was unable to use that Disney magic to turn around the entertainment behemoth's struggles with disruption in the streaming business.

Page 2: Reading - Know What Matters by Ron Shaich

Ron Shaich is the former CEO of Panera Bread and the author of the 2023 CEO tell-all book "Know What Matters." It's an interesting story of the rise (pun intended) of Panera Bread. Shaich's narrative isn't sugar-coated with over-optimism, but instead, the raw realities of leadership. His recipe for success? A blend of three key ingredients:

1. Tell the truth.
2. Know what matters.
3. Get the job done.

There are scores of CEO "how I did it" books on the shelves. From Phil Knight's classic Shoe Dog (Nike) to Bob Iger's Ride of a Lifetime (Disney.) Many of them, including those two, are insightful. Know What Matters brings a fresh flavor to the table. Here's why:

1. Yes, it is the story of Panera Bread. However, it is also the story of Shaich's personal life. The long hours, stress, worry, fear and the shoulder crushing burden of putting the company on the line time and again for the sake of its future.
2. You must always been innovating and in a sense, abandoning what you've worked so hard to achieve to get to the next place, while others are striving to get where you are now. It's exhausting and unrelenting.
3. There is always a predator out there. Twice, Shaich fought off activist investment firms that swooped in when the stock price was low. They carve up the long-term strategies and investments to generate short term profits to boost the stock price so they can cash out and leave you with the carcass.
4. You are always betting the survival of the company for the benefit of the future., And much of the time, everybody thinks you're crazy. However, competition and complacency always sets in and if you don't reiterate, you risk going the route of Kodak, Blockbuster and Blackberry.

Read Know What Matters and learn how to sharply envision your future and then carefully articulate the narrative and steps you will take to achieve it.

Page 3: Leadership - Measure What Matters

As Ron Shaich points out in his book about the building of Panera, it is important to know what matters. It is also important to measure what matters. Often, we focus on outcomes to the exclusion of activity.

When we focus and measure activity, the outcomes take care of themselves. We can set goals for losing weight, for growing sales, or for any number of worthy endeavors. The problem is when we focus on the outcome and not the activity, we often fall short. Let's break this down a bit.

If we want to lose weight, let's focus on the calories we consume and the number of steps we take or sets we lift or number of workouts. If we measure the activity, we can see very clearly whether we are taking the actions that will result in losing weight.

In business, most of us want to increase sales. When that doesn't happen, we look for the reasons why. It was the economy. Our competitors lower their prices. Covid. But are we tracking the right measures such as the number of sales calls, the number of proposals, the response time to leads and so on?

The point is to focus on the activities that produce the outcomes we want and and measure them. Personally, 2023 was a very good year for me. Except for weight. As a CEO Coach focusing on well-being, you would think this would be a priority for me. You know, walking my talk. And it is. The problem was that I failed to measure the activity. And because the activity wasn't there, I failed. In the areas where I measured the activities to produce the outcomes I wanted, I succeeded.

Page 4: CEO Well-Being - Prioritize Your Health

To effectively lead others, we have to lead ourselves first. That begins with taking care of ourselves first. CEOs so often allow their own well-being to take a backseat to their other concerns.

• How is my family?
• How do we grow and retain our people?
• How do we better serve our customers?
• How do we increase the value of the business?

All of these and the endless list of other priorities is well-taken. Breakdowns occur when we fail to pay attention to what is important. A key employee feels neglected, essential equipment maintenance is overlooked, we forget to measure what is important. I get it. But if we give up our health in search of our wealth, we will, sooner or later, lose our wealth in search of our health.

Action Steps to prioritize our well-being:

1. Sleep. Pretty simple and of so difficult. And many of us cheat our sleep telling ourselves we can get by with less or we'll catch up next weekend. Nope, it doesn't work that way.

Aim for seven hours every night.

No screen time one hour before bed.

Aim for consistent bedtimes and wakeups.

1. Stress. Once we wake up, the stress starts building. It increases quickly and has an annoying slow half life. Be aware of when you get triggered or when you feel yourself getting stress. Baseball managers know when a pitcher begins to "lose their stuff" and takes them out of the game. Listen to your body and give yourself a time out. Take a walk, get some movement, seek distraction for a few minutes, practice mindfulness. It helps. Powering through is rarely a good idea, in sports or in business.
2. Movement. Strength training, cardio, boxing, yoga, are all great. And yes, you should implement a consistent training routine. But during the day, intentionally build in movement when ever you can. Sitting in meetings and staring at screens is not good for you. Throughout the day, doing anything you can to get your blood flowing and oxygen to your brain. Your energy will revive and you will be more focused.
3. Hydrate. Yep, drink that water. Lugging around a massive Stanley or Yeti bottle may be over the top and I'm not talking about drowning yourself with a gallon of water a day. However, sipping on a couple of bottles of water a day is a good idea. And always drink water before coffee in the morning.
4. Nourish. Consider intermittent fasting for 12 hours a day. You won't starve and you will allow your insulin to get back down before it spikes with the next meal. Think fresh. Be mindful of portion sizes. Eat for energy and strength, not for comfort.

Page 5: Quotes

"Done is better than perfect." -Sheryl Sandberg, former COO, Meta

"Price is what you pay. Value is what you get." -Warren Buffett, CEO, Berkshire Hathaway

"The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing." - Seth Godin, Author

"If we win the hearts and minds of employees, we're going to have better business success." - Mary Barra, CEO, General Motors

"Leadership is knowing when to lean on others and let them step up and shine." -Michelle Peluso, CEO, Gilt

"The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of the individual is the team" - Phil Jackson, NBA Champion

Page 6: And One More Thing - Ferrari The Movie

Michael Mann, at 80, is still a great director and with a cast including Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz, you would think it would be a good use of two hours. I was hoping to glean some tips from Enzo Ferrari that I could share with CEOs. I suppose I did come away with a couple of tips, but for me, the movie fell flat.

Ferrari built consumer cars to fund his race cars, not the other way around. The theory was if he won races, he would sell more cars. The movie was set in 1957 and at that time the company was nearly insolvent and Enzo focused his attention on winning the The Mille Miglia, a 1,000 mile race. Tragedy struck and while the Ferrari team won, one of their racers, Alfonso de Portago, blew a tire killing himself and several innocent spectators along the road. The lesson- sometimes you need to ease of and not push too hard.

The movie was mostly about the double life Enzo lived with his wife and another with his mistress. The second lesson is that staying in your lane both on the track and in your personal life is a good idea.