CEOFlow is my coaching program for CEOs. I saw, from being a CEO, working with them and knowing many of them, that it’s easy to create a business that traps you rather than works for you.  It’s also just lonely at the top.

While we begin by focusing first just on the CEO themself, because the CEO is the ‘pebble in the pond’ that creates every ripple within the business, the CEOFlow system is about turning your employees into mini-CEOs who can help you run and grow your business like high-level executives.

Here is what is possible for CEOs to experience:

• A peaceful and centered mind – stress is the enemy (of your and your company’s success)
• Manage & succeed by being yourself rather than stepping into a different CEO personality at work
• For women, find a path to power that doesn’t compromise your femininity
• More enjoyment of your business and your daily work
• Your ideal combination of money, freedom and adventure

F^ree CEOFlow Sessions For Five CEOs

I’m offering a free CEOFlow consult to five CEOs (each is a $375 value).  Again, for a sense of the specifics of the program and my approach, you can take a look at www.CEOFlow.com/mini-ceos.

How To Apply

Send an email to info at pebblestorm dot com, with answers these questions:

1. How many employees (including part-time or independent contractors) do you have?
2. If you could wave a magic wand and change 3 things in your business or life right now, what would they be?
3. What 3-4 things do you feel are holding back the potential of a) your business, and b) you within it?

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That’s actually the whole post, but if you want to see the original, it’s here

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I put together and uploaded a bunch of new sketches this week for CEOFlow.  Preview them at:
www.flickr.com/photos/aaronross

Full set (includes some PebbleStorm sketches too):

http://flickr.com/photos/aaronross/sets/72157605840085105/

CEOFlow Original Post

A significant contributor to a state of CEOFlow is an environment in which employees are motivated primarily intrinsically by their own work, enjoyment and purpose (all in alignment with the organization of course!)…rather than motivated primarily by extrinsic motivators like fear, exaggerated incentives or control…continued on CEOFlow.com

“Semco has no official structure. It has no organizational chart. There’s no business plan or company strategy, no twoyear or five-year plan, no goal or mission statement, no longterm budget. The company often does not have a fixed CEO. There are no vice presidents or chief officers for information technology or operations. There are no standards or practices. There’s no human resources department. There are no career plans, no job descriptions or employee contracts. No one approves reports or expense accounts…Continued on CEOFlow

There are some fundamental management values or operating principles that a CEO and managers can take to heart to move their culture away from push and closer to pull: Trust, Transparency and Alignment. The CEO must be the one to lead by example in creating this kind of environment… continued on CEOFlow

This morning, Tim Ferriss posted a great entry about a new book on Best Buy’s ROWE project (“Results-Oriented Work Environment”): No Schedules, No Meetings—Enter Best Buy’s ROWE

I remember reading about Best Buy’s initiative a few years ago in a business magazine, and cutting it out to save. Not because the idea of measuring people by results was so revolutionary – because obviously it’s not – but because implementing successfully in a large company is revolutionary. Because of ROWE, Best Buy claims to have increased HQ productivity by 41% while decreasing voluntary turnover (i.e. quitting) as much as 90%.

Actually, although we all say we want to measure results rather than effort, it actually doesn’t happen as much as you assume it does. Companies, including small ones, still demand constant facetime, even with the most-measured people in a company such as salespeople!! (Obviously this is only relevant to salespeople based in an office, not field salespeople.)

Thankfully, the trend today is towards more and more freedom to produce, without the shackles of obligatory facetime, hours or meetings (because those things can still be highly valuable). It’s getting easier as the technologies improve. But we’re still at the early stages of a change in attitude.

For example, for the managers reading this right now – how often do you let your people work from home? If employee after employee (not just one or two) came to you and asked for permission to work from home multiple per week, what would your reaction be? Even if they made a solid case for how their productivity would increase?

Pause for a moment and really pay attention to your reaction, and question it. Is there anything resembling “I never worked from home, so they shouldn’t either”, “I won’t know what they’re doing,” or “my own boss will think I and my team are slacking”? Fear is the most powerful inhibitor.

These are examples of why teams and cultures still demand and measure effort, not results, and why changing this attitude is harder than you’d think, even in a small company.

The book is called“Why Work Sucks, And How to Fix It: No Schedules, No Meetings, No Joke – The Simple Change That Can Make Your Job Terriffic.”

If you see that you have been controlling of your people’s time and attention, what would be one thing you can try to begin to loosen things up?

The internet has changed business – in helpful and challenging ways:
* We have more information and metrics – and more confusion from all the clutter.
* We can develop and deploy products faster – far beyond our clients’ ability to absorb them.
* We can find prospects more easily – but they’re less interested in talking with us.

[.....] It’s time to start taking regular breaths to reflect on what we’re missing…continued on CEOFlow