In my work with CEOs, one of the most common concerns is how to run effective weekly meetings with their executive team. When I tell them how Jeff Bezos managed this process, they are very surprised.
Jeff would meet with his Exec team (the S-Team) each week on Thursday mornings for four hours. My co-author, Colin Bryar, was Jeff’s Chief of Staff in the mid-2000s, and managing the agenda for this meeting was partly his responsibility.
Wanting to do it well, he sought Jeff’s advice on the best use of this time. He asked a simple question: “How should we spend our time?”
Jeff told him that he and the S-Team had already done the hard work of setting specific goals, deciding what to build, and staffing teams to build it through the Annual Operating Planning process. Therefore, most of the meeting should be focused on making sure these things were actually getting done.
Those things became a list of S-team goals — a combination of new initiatives (new features, products, processes, etc) and input metrics.
Jeff and the S-Team would spend three out of the four meeting hours every Thursday on execution. Teams would come in and give updates on the S-Team Goals—red, yellow, green. Are we on track? Where are we stuck?
This cadence gave us a mechanism to course-correct when things weren’t going to plan. Jeff and the S-Team would give the team clear direction, help solve problems, and re-allocate resources if needed. This process meant that operating teams and the executive team stayed aligned.
The process is simple: decide what matters most, make a plan, track it ruthlessly, and don’t waste time re-deciding everything every week.
Readers — is this how it works at your company? Is your CEO and Exec team rolling up their sleeves and ensuring that the work gets done, or do they spend time re-litigating goals and projects?
