If the CEO or the executive team is not able to answer all of the above questions, then the leadership team suffers from management blind spots.

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION AND A CEO 

The proper evaluation of the CEO and the executive team is critical to the company’s performance. The evaluation framework of the CEO can be summarized into two major areas; business strategy formulation and execution.

According to a best practices study conducted, the CEO’s key challenge in formulating and executing the business strategy is not in finding answers to the tough questions, the challenge is in asking the right questions. 

Asking the wrong questions will result in skewed operational or strategic plans.

The top 10 questions every board must ask its CEO:

1.    Are we in the right business and markets? What are the growth areas to invest in and declining areas to divest?

2.    What are the economic and market research data that support our strategy?

3.    What are our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOTs)?

4.    What are we doing to address each one of the SWOTs?

5.    What are our core competencies? How we can leverage them?

6.    What are the key strategic and operational risks? How do we manage them?

7.    What are our key performance targets?

8.    How do we plan to achieve those targets?

9.    How can we build a sustainable competitive advantage?

10.                    How can we improve governance, control and reporting functions?

The top 10 questions every CEO must ask his executive team:

1.    Do we have a big growth idea?

2.    Do we have the right growth engine (business model, infrastructure, resources and network)?

3.    Does our operations management efficiently and effectively support our performance targets? How do we know?

4.    Which vendors, partners, clients and employees are delivering the real value? How do we get more out of the rest?

5.    What are the key SWOTs in each function, and how do you manage them?

6.    How can we build a sustainable competitive advantage in each function (Marketing, R&D, SCM, IT, etc)?

7.    What initiatives/programs/projects are needed to execute our strategy? How do we ensure that they are aligned and executed with the right quality, on time and within budget?

8.    What are the key performance targets and incentives for each executive (CMO, CFO, COO, CIO, and CHO)?

9.    Do we have the appropriate organization in place to meet those targets? (IIM’s 5D strategy framework: budget, tools, products, processes and people)?

10.                    How can we communicate our plans better to our stakeholders in order to win their support and achieve our goals?

If the CEO or the executive team is not able to answer all of the above questions, then the leadership team suffers from management blind spots. Every CEO/CXO must be able to provide the answers to the preceding questions, readily, clearly, and precisely. The executive team members must be able to provide qualitative and quantitative answers.